It seems that for many fraternities there is a difference between "honorary" and "alum" initiates. Does your fraternity do both or just alum initiates. Do the alum initiates have all of the same priviledges and rights as a regularly-initiated member?

Kudos to Erik for this quote:
Silver

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia does have honorary initiations, both at the chapter and the national level. According to our General Regulations for Collegiate Chapters, “Honorary membership may be conferred upon any distinguished [male] musician or patron of music. He may be a Sinfonian the chapter wishes to honor for outstanding contributions or continuing support, or he may be a non-Sinfonian of national or regional renown with a connection of some sort to the initiating chapter.” The honorary initiation must be approved by a three-fourths vote of the chapter and endorsed by the province governor to national headquarters. A brother initiated by honorary initiation would be classified an honorary member of the chapter. If he were already a Sinfonian, he would be considered an alumnus member of “AB” Chapter and an honorary member of “CD” Chapter.

National honorary membership, which is conferred by the National Executive Committee, is limited to men who are not already Sinfonians; there is a national award that is the equivalent of honorary membership for men who are already Sinfonians. National honorary members are initiated into the Alpha Alpha chapter.

According to figures I have seen, there have been 1,700+ honorary initiations since our founding in 1898. This would include honorary initiations of men who are already Sinfonians, and would equal less than 0.02% of our total initiations. Honorary members are considered full brothers.

Faculty and staff who are connected to a sheltering institution and whom a chapter wishes to initiate typically are not initiated as honorary members. Instead, they pledge and go through the probationary membership period just like all other collegiate members. Some chapter requirements of the probationary membership period may be waived for faculty or staff, but national requirements cannot be waived. After initiation, they can be immediately transferred from collegiate status to alumni status.

We don’t have alumni initiations as such, but a chapter may, under certain circumstances (which I am not really familiar with, never having seen it done) initiate a person not affiliated with a sheltering institution into collegiate membership. I assume they could then be transferred to alumni status, but I’m not sure about that.

Personally, I would love to be able to initiate my father into the fraternity. Not for the sake of adding numbers or money, but I believe that my father ought to know Ritual I have gone through and how it has changed me.

I know a bunch of brothers at my chapter liked the idea, but don't know how welcomed it would be by the international fraternity. I doubt it would ever happen, but it'd be nice

SGill,

I did call IHQ on this and talked to Kip Z about just this thing.

He told me that First The Chapter has to approve them. Then passed on to IHQ and given to the GHZ for approval.

But as I stated above, it is given for work done with and for the Chapter. Or in some cases of Local Members who left before it was Colonized.

I agree with what you are saying as if that was the case, My Dad should be initiated along with my Mother if she was still alive for what they went through and did for us when I started the Local.:)