At the end of last week, on September 7th, the National Association of Collegiate eSports was officially launched in the United States of America with the main purpose of legitimizing eSports on the institutional level.
Having started with only six founding members a year ago, the university and college association NAC expanded to 20 members and expects more institutions to join their efforts with this official launch in the US. In their press release from last week NAC stated the following:
The six founding members of NAC:
Columbia College (Mo.)
Indiana Institute of Technology
Maryville University (Mo.)
Midland University (Neb.)
Robert Morris University (Ill.)
University of Pikeville (Ky.)
In March of this year, University of California, or more specifically UC Irvine became the first Public University to offer eSports scholarships for the fall semester of 2016.
Membership in National Association of Collegiate eSports is tax free but to qualify for NAC eSports membership, institutions must be fully accredited by an authorized higher educational accrediting agency relative to their region and national affiliation. Additionally, programs must be officially endorsed by the school that they represent. Membership application form can be found here.
One becoming NAC members all the institutions are expected to also to take part in at the inaugural NAC eSports Invitational event, scheduled for the Spring of 2017. NAC eSports Invitational will be followed by full regular-season and postseason competitions coming in the 2017-2018 academic year.
source: nacesports.org
