Simon Fraser University has officially accepted an invitation to become the 10th full-fledged active member of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, GNAC Commissioner Richard Hannan has announced.
Hannan made the announcement during a press conference on the SFU campus in Burnaby, B.C. Wednesday.

The GNAC is a NCAA Division II conference, which currently has member institutions in five states including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

Simon Fraser’s membership is effectively immediately. Its teams will begin competing in the conference in the fall of 2010.

The Canadian’s school membership application to the GNAC was unanimously approved by the GNAC Management Council and the GNAC CEO Board, which is composed of the presidents and chancellors of the nine universities.

“The member institutions of the GNAC have been considering expansion for a number of years,” Dr. Philip Eaton, who is the president of Seattle Pacific University and the chair of the GNAC CEO Board, said.
“We have looked at a huge number of possible institutions.

Simon Fraser University is ideal and fits the profile of our conference extremely well. So we celebrate the culmination of a lot of hard work and eagerly welcome our friends at Simon Fraser into our conference.”

Earlier this summer, Simon Fraser became the first institution outside the United States to enter the NCAA membership process after the Division II Membership Committee accepted the institution's application during a meeting in Indianapolis.

“The addition of Simon Fraser opens an exciting new chapter for the GNAC,” Hannan said. “We are extremely pleased that Simon Fraser has accepted our invitation to become a member of the GNAC. SFU provides us with another quality institution - academically, athletically and geographically.”

Simon Fraser will compete in the conference in football, volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s indoor track and field, men’s and women’s outdoor track and field, softball and golf.