The process to attempt to remove St. Thomas from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference will begin next week at a meeting of the 13 conference presidents.

The ouster, if it happens, would affect all of St. Thomas’ sports teams. St. Thomas was a founding member of the MIAC in 1920.

The presidents will meet on Thursday, April 18. The meeting, according to multiple sources, will most likely discuss changing the conference bylaws to create an enrollment cap of 4,000 undergraduate students for conference members. St. Thomas, with 6,336 undergraduates, is the only conference school with more than 4,000.

If the presidents agree to proceed with the bylaws change, a vote to remove St. Thomas from the conference would take place in May.

The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was originally the Tri-State Conference, which had teams from Minnesota and both Dakotas. In 1919, delegates from the Minnesota campuses had a meeting to talk about a new league. As a result, the Minnesota teams got together to create their own conference. On March 15, 1920, the MIAC was born with founding teams St. Thomas, Saint John’s, Gustavus Adolphus, Hamline, Carleton, Macalester and St. Olaf. The MIAC is a member of the NCAA Division III category of colleges.

Today, there are 13 private institutions in the conference, including St. Catherine University, Augsburg University, Bethel University, St. Mary’s University, Concordia College and the College of Saint Benedict. The MIAC is considered one of the strongest D-III athletic conferences in the nation.

TommieMedia attempted to contact representatives from the MIAC office and St. Thomas administrators to talk about the issue. Some declined to be interviewed; others could not be reached.

Matthew Curry can be reached at curr1523@stthomas.edu.