The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference was formed in 1915 when five Southern California institutions combined for the purpose of promoting and governing competition in intercollegiate sports with the fundamental principle of the conference being to encourage the highest ideals of amateur sports in an environment of high academic standards.
While the mission of the conference has remained intact since the beginning, the membership has varied over the years. The conference stood at eight members from 1991-2011, and with the addition of Chapman University in 2011 now stands at nine. The five original SCIAC schools are still members: California Institute of Technology, Occidental College, Pomona College, University of Redlands, and Whittier College. Occidental and Redlands are, however, the only ones to have uninterrupted membership. They have since been joined by California Lutheran University, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, and University of La Verne to comprise the current membership. (Pomona College now has become Pomona-Pitzer Colleges for athletics.)
The following is a chronology of the membership changes over the years:
| 1915 |
Caltech, Occidental, Pomona, Redlands and Whittier found SCIAC |
| 1920 |
UCLA joins (then known as the Southern Branch of the University of California) |
| 1926 |
La Verne College and San Diego State Teachers College join |
| 1927 |
UCLA leaves |
| 1931 |
UC Santa Barbara joins (then known as Santa Barbara State Teachers College) |
| 1934 |
Caltech and Pomona leave |
| 1938 |
UC Santa Barbara and La Verne leave; Caltech and Pomona rejoin |
| 1939 |
San Diego State leaves |
| 1943 |
Whittier leaves |
| 1946 |
Whittier rejoins |
| 1947 |
Pomona combines with Claremont Men's College for athletics (Pomona-Claremont) |
| 1950 |
Chapman College begins competition as an associate in baseball, basketball and tennis |
| 1952 |
Chapman's association ends |
| 1958 |
Claremont combines with Harvey Mudd College for athletics (Claremont-Mudd) [they are ineligible for SCIAC titles this year] |
| 1971 |
La Verne rejoins; Pomona combines with Pitzer College for athletics (Pomona-Pitzer) |
| 1976 |
Claremont-Mudd combines with Scripps College for athletics (Claremont-Mudd-Scripps) |
| 1991 |
California Lutheran University joins [ineligible for football title in 1991] |
| 2011 |
Chapman University joins [ineligible for SCIAC titles in 2011-12 academic year] |
The membership has varied between four and nine institutions. The following is a summary of which years had what number of members:
Membership
Number |
|
Years at
Membership Level |
| 4 |
1943-1946 |
3 |
| 5 |
1915-20, 1939-43, 1946-58 |
21 |
| 6 |
1920-26, 1934-39, 1958-71 |
24 |
| 7 |
1927-31, 1971-91 |
24 |
| 8 |
1926-27, 1931-34, 1991-2011 |
24 |
| 9 |
2011 |
13 |
The SCIAC celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2015-16. The 2040-41 academic year will mark the 125th anniversary.