The North Star Conference or NSC was a women's conference in the NCAA. The conference existed from the 1983–84 school year through the 1991–92 school year. Originally announced in 1983, the conference was formed by charter members Butler, Dayton, DePaul, Detroit, Evansville, Loyola (Chicago), Notre Dame, and Xavier. Although the conference was to offer competition in cross country, softball, swimming, tennis, and volleyball, the conference was created primarily as a basketball conference. With the exception of Butler and Dayton, all charter members' women's basketball teams were already competing at the NCAA Division I level; Butler and Dayton upgraded their teams from NCAA Division II and commenced competition in the conference's second season. The conference was effectively absorbed by the Mid-Continent Conference (now known as The Summit League), as six of its final seven members moved their women's sports to that organization (the remaining member, Akron, moved all its sports for both sexes to the Mid-American Conference).