The conference was founded in 1975 as the Virginia College Conference. On January 1, 1976, the name was changed to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The 1976–77 season was the first in which championships were offered. In 1982–83, women's sports were added. In 1981, Catholic University joined the conference after leaving Division I's Colonial Athletic Association. In 1988, Virginia Wesleyan was added as a member, and, in 1990, Guilford became the first member located outside D.C. and Virginia. Maryville College was an all-sports member in the 1980s. In 1989 Catholic left the conference to become a charter member of the Capital Athletic Conference, returning in 1999 as a football-only member. The next school to leave the conference was Mary Baldwin College, which left in 1999 to join the Atlantic Women's Colleges Conference. In 2010 the ODAC announced the addition of Shenandoah University to its full-time membership, with its first full year of involvement during the 2012–13 academic year. The league office moved its physical location from Salem, Virginia, to Forest, Virginia, just outside centrally located Lynchburg, and contracted with Jim Ward Design for its new marks. On March 3, 2015, Sweet Briar College announced it was to close at the end of the 2015 summer session. However, on June 20, 2015, the Virginia Attorney General announced a mediation agreement that will keep Sweet Briar College open for the 2015–16 academic year. Sweet Briar reactivated its sports teams in the 2015-16 season and remained a full member of the ODAC. On September 29, 2015, it was announced that Catholic University would withdraw in 2017 as associate member to join the new football league at the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference. In June 2017, it was announced that Ferrum College would become the 15th full-time member of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. The conference hosts the Division III championships in football and men's basketball, both of which are held in Salem, Virginia. DIII softball has called Salem home along with Division III women's lacrosse and volleyball. Since 1993 - the conference and city have hosted over 50 Division III national championships.
Member schools
Members
;Notes: † - Women's college, therefore not competing in men's sports. ^ - Men's college, therefore not competing in women's sports. % - Hollins University does not have an athletic nickname.
Associate members
Former members
Former associate members
Membership timeline
DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1976 till:2022 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb
id:line value:black
id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all id:OtherC1 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift: anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1976 till:end text:Bridgewater bar:2 color:FullxF from:1976 till:end text:Eastern Mennonite bar:3 color:Full from:1976 till:end text:Emory and Henry bar:4 color:Full from:1976 till:end text:Hampden–Sydney bar:5 color:FullxF from:1976 till:end text:Lynchburg bar:6 color:Full from:1976 till:end text:Randolph–Macon bar:7 color:FullxF from:1976 till:end text:Roanoke bar:8 color:Full from:1976 till:end text:Washington and Lee bar:9 color:Full from:1980 till:1988 text:Maryville bar:10 color:Full from:1981 till:1989 text:Catholic bar:10 color:AssocF from:1999 till:2017 text: bar:11 color:FullxF from:1982 till:end text:Hollins bar:12 color:FullxF from:1982 till:end text:Randolph bar:13 color:FullxF from:1982 till:end text:Sweet Briar bar:14 color:FullxF from:1984 till:1992 text:Mary Baldwin bar:15 color:FullxF from:1989 till:end text:Virginia Wesleyan bar:16 color:Full from:1991 till:end text:Guilford bar:17 shift: color:AssocOS from:2011 till:end text:Greensboro bar:18 shift: color:AssocOS from:2011 till:2016 text:Notre Dame bar:19 shift: color:Full from:2012 till:end text:Shenandoah bar:20 shift: color:AssocOS from:2015 till:2018 text:Ferrum bar:20 color:Full from:2018 till:end bar:21 shift: color:AssocF from:2019 till:end text:Southern Virginia ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:1976
Purple denotes football playing member. Green denotes non-football playing member. Red denotes associate member. Blue denotes associate member.
Sports
The conference sponsors championships in the following sports:
