The GLIAC was founded in June 1972. Its eleven member institutions are located in the Midwestern United States in the states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. There are three affiliate members who compete in the GLIAC for sports not sponsored by their home conference.
Sponsorship of football was dropped by the GLIAC after the 1989 season. Conference schools sponsoring football joined with members of the Heartland Football Conference to form the Midwest Intercollegiate Football Conference (MIFC), which began play in 1990. The MIFC merged with the GLIAC in July 1999, and the GLIAC resumed sponsorship of football that fall.
Oakland left the GLIAC to become a Division I Independent, effective after the 1996–1997 academic year. (Oakland later joined the Mid-Continent Conference, effective in the 1998–1999 academic year).
The University of Findlay joined the GLIAC, effective in the 1997–1998 academic year.
1999: The GLIAC reinstated football as a sponsored sport by merging with the Midwest Intercollegiate Football Conference (MIFC). The only non-GLIAC member of the MIFC, the University of Indianapolis (UIndy) became a football-only affiliate of the GLIAC, effective in the 1999 fall season (1999–2000 academic year).
2001: Indianapolis added men's and women's swimming & diving to its GLIAC affiliate membership, effective in the 2001–2002 academic year.
2004: Lewis University joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for men's and women's swimming and diving, effective in the 2004–2005 academic year.
2007: On June 20, 2007, Tiffin University joined the GLIAC, effective in the 2008–2009 academic year.
Notre Dame College joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for some sports (football, women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, and wrestling), effective in the 2012–2013 academic year.
Notre Dame (OH) left the GLIAC as an affiliate member to move its sports into its new primary conference home in the Mountain East Conference, effective after the 2012–2013 academic year.
UIndy and Lewis left the GLIAC as affiliate members for men's and women's swimming & diving, effective after the 2012–2013 academic year.
Ursuline College joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for women's lacrosse and women's swimming & diving, effective in the 2012–2013 academic year.
2014:
Urbana and Wheeling Jesuit left the GLIAC as affiliate members for women's lacrosse, effective after the 2014 spring season (2013–2014 academic year).
McKendree University joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for women's lacrosse, effective in the 2015 spring season (2014–2015 academic year).
2015:
Alderson Broaddus and Ursuline left the GLIAC as affiliate members for women's lacrosse, effective after the 2015 spring season (2014–2015 academic year).
UIndy added women's lacrosse to its GLIAC affiliate membership, effective in the 2016 spring season (2015–2016 academic year).
Concordia University, St. Paul joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for men's lacrosse, effective in the 2018 spring season (2017–2018 academic year).
2018:
Tiffin left the GLIAC to join the G-MAC, effective after the 2017–2018 academic year.
The University of Wisconsin–Parkside joined the GLIAC, effective in the 2018–2019 academic year. It also adopted the new athletic brand name of Parkside.
Three institutions joined the GLIAC as affiliate members: Lewis and Maryville University for women's lacrosse, and St. Cloud State University for men's swimming and men's swimming & diving, effective in the 2018–2019 academic year.
2019:
UIndy, Lewis, Maryville and McKendree left the GLIAC as affiliate members for women's lacrosse, effective after the 2019 spring season (2018–2019 academic year).
Upper Iowa University joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for men's soccer and women's lacrosse, effective in the 2019–2020 academic year.
2021:
Ashland left the GLIAC to join the G-MAC, effective after the 2020–2021 academic year.
Augustana University joined the GLIAC as an affiliate member for men's swimming & diving, effective in the 2021–2022 academic year.
2022:
Northwood left the GLIAC for a second time to join the G-MAC, effective after the 2021–2022 academic year.
Upper Iowa announces its intent to move to the Great Lakes Valley Conference in all sports after the 2022–2023 academic year, including its GLIAC affiliated sports of women's lacrosse and men's soccer.
Member schools
Current members
The GLIAC currently has 11 full members; all but two are public schools. Reclassifying members in yellow.
^Represents the calendar year when fall sports competition begins.
^Northern Michigan left the GLIAC after the 1976–77 school year; which would later re-join back in the 1987–88 school year.
^Purdue Northwest maintains a branch campus in Westville, where the men's and women's cross country teams are housed and where the men's and women's basketball & women's volleyball teams play a portion of their home contests; the other intercollegiate athletics teams compete on the main campus in Hammond.
^Purdue Northwest was originally founded as two separate institutions: Purdue University–Calumet in Hammond and Purdue University–North Central in Westville, which both began offering degrees in 1946. The two institutions were merged to become Purdue Northwest in 2016.
^Roosevelt joined the GLIAC as a provisional member in July 2023 while still competing in the NAIA's Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC); it began competition as a full GLIAC member since fall 2024.
Affiliate members
The GLIAC currently has three affiliate members, all but one are private schools:
The GLIAC had nine former affiliate members, all were private schools. School names and nicknames reflect those in use in the final season each school was an affiliate:
^ abcDe facto Division I sport. In men's ice hockey, the NCAA Division I championship is open to Division II members. In fencing and skiing, the NCAA sponsors single championship events open to members of all three divisions.
^Northern Michigan houses an official U.S. Olympic training center for the non-NCAA discipline of Greco-Roman wrestling. All trainees are enrolled at NMU, and are recognized as NMU varsity athletes.
^Northern Michigan only competes in NCAA-sponsored events in Nordic skiing. Its Alpine skiing squad is recognized as a varsity team, but does not compete in NCAA events.
Davenport has varsity teams in esports (coeducational) as well as men's and women's ultimate.
Michigan Tech and Purdue Northwest have coeducational varsity esports teams.
Northern Michigan recognizes esports (fully coeducational) as a varsity sport. Also, the university hosts an official U.S. Olympic training center for men's and women's weightlifting; all participants in this program are enrolled at NMU, and are recognized as varsity athletes.
Roosevelt recognizes ACHA (club) D1 and D2 men's hockey as well as ACHA women's hockey within its athletic department.
^"GLIAC Membership History". Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Archived from the original on November 30, 2011. Retrieved October 29, 2011.
