NCAA D2 Felician University Announces New Women’s Swimming Program

Felician University in Rutherford, New Jersey, just west of New York City, has announced the addition of a new women’s swimming & diving program that will begin competition in the 2022-2023 academic year.

The program plans to offer 8 full athletic scholarship equivalents in its first season.

Ken Berk has been named the program’s first head coach, and Rutherford natives Chris Dunn and Mike Lazzara will serve as assistants.

Felician was founded in 1942, but has seen rapid growth and development in the last decade. In 2015, the school changed its name to Felician University, and the swimming program will become the 15th varsity sport at the school, including 9th for women.

The school has an enrollment of about 2,400, which is about a 20% increase over five years ago. The student body is made up of about 70% women.

The school was founded by the Felician Sisters, and remains a Catholic-affiliated school. The university has campuses in Lodi and Rutherford in Bergen County in northern New Jersey.

The swimming program will be based out of the pool at the Rutherford Swim Association, where they will practice and host meets. That pool is less than a mile from Felician’s Rutherford campus. RSA has a 6-lane, 25-meter indoor pool. While the traditional college competition course is 25 yards, a 25-meter course is an approved competition course as well.

Lazzara and Dunn are the co-founders of the Rutherford Swim Association club team.

“We are looking forward to women’s swimming becoming our 15th intercollegiate athletics program,” director of athletics Ben “JR” DiNallo said. “This is an exciting addition to our athletics offerings, especially in being the first member of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference to sponsor the sport.”

The school is currently applying for membership in the Metropolitan Swim Conference. The conference is a group of NCAA Division II and Division III schools in the greater New York City region who don’t otherwise have conferences to swim in. The conference is led by teams from Rowan, TCNJ, and Montclair State.

Tuition and fees at Felician total about $35,700 for a full-time student, though the school says that 99% of the student body receive institutional grants.

Coaching Bios, Courtesy Felician University:

A member of the NJSIAA Hall of Fame, Berk guided the boys’ and girls’ swim teams at Rutherford High School to numerous division titles over a career spanning more than two decades. He retired from high-school teaching and coaching in 2015 and became the age-group coach, and later the head coach, of the Wyckoff YMCA Sharks. The club has multiple Junior National qualifiers and state record holders, and a consistent top 20 national ranking, under his watch.

A 1987 graduate of William Paterson College, Berk began his coaching career with the Pioneers. He was on staff as both WPC teams qualified for multiple NCAA Division III National Championship meets and garnered Metropolitan Swim Conference and All-America recognition. He received an M.S. degree from Ramapo College in 1999.

Berk will be assisted by Mike Lazzara and Chris Dunn, both of Rutherford. Lazzara, the RSA’s chief executive officer and along with Dunn its co-founder, is a USA Swimming-certified and an American Swimming Coaches Association Level 3-certified swim coach. He is the co-head coach of the Rebel Aquatic Club, based in Rutherford. After swimming for two seasons at William Paterson University, Lazzara earned a B.A. degree in child advocacy and policy from Montclair State University in 2013. He owns an M.A. in education and teaching certification from Saint Peter’s University, conferred in 2015.

Dunn was a three-year member of the men’s swimming and diving team at The College of New Jersey, earning New Jersey Athletic Conference All-Academic honors each season. A USA Swimming certified coach, he is the co-head coach of the Rebel Aquatic Club. He earned a B.A. in political science in 2015 from TCNJ, from which he is pursuing an MBA, and is the chief financial officer of the RSA.

“I am excited for this challenge,” Berk said. “I have always coached and advised my athletes on the concept of building their lives wisely. Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past, and your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitude and the choices you make today. I hope to bring these principles to our new program at Felician.”