The Milwaukee School of Engineering was accepted Monday as a member of the newly formed Northern Athletics Conference (NATHC) and is scheduled to officially join the league in the 2007-08 academic year.

The new Division III conference has many programs familiar to the Raiders, since the league originated by merging the majority of the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference and the Lake Michigan Conference schools. In the fall of 2006, their first year of competition, the NAthC will have eight schools from the Lake Michigan Conference. They include Alverno, Concordia (Wis.), Dominican, Edgewood, Lakeland, Maranatha Baptist, Marian and Wisconsin Lutheran; and four from the Northern Illinois-Iowa Conference, including Aurora, Benedictine, Concordia (Ill.) and Rockford. Clarke, which was also hoping to gain admittance to the NATHC, found its application tabled. Eureka, a member of the NIIC, is moving to the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

As a new conference, the NATHC will have a two-year waiting period before receiving automatic bids. MSOE will play as an independent next year with the possibility of also receiving Pool B bids to all NCAA championships.