Quote:
Originally Posted by xovimat
With rare exception, the brothers who most loudly proclaim that the fraternity has always been social were not members of Sinfonia during the 1970s. Indeed, many of them had not even been born yet. What makes them such experts on the fraternity's history?
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Hello Brother Barber, and welcome to GreekChat!
I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone claim that Sinfonia has
always been social. I've heard many claim, and I think that history bears it out, that Sinfonia was founded as a social fraternity (not a general fraternity -- the two terms are not identical) and that while professionalism clearly ruled the day for many decades, the movement of the last two decades has been to return to founding principles, including recovery of the Fraternity's social purposes.
Like you, I pledged Phi Mu Alpha in the professional days, but my experience was a bit different from yours. While leadership at the time indeed insisted that the Fraternity was professional through and through, my chapter and those nearby mine emphasized the social rather at least as much if not more than the professional. You would hear our brothers saying things like, "yes, we're a professional fraternity, but that doesn't really describe who we are." My impression -- based on nothing but personal observation -- is that the professional-social balance varied in different regions of the country, with some areas leaning more to professional while others leaned more to social.
As for what was going on in 1898, a great deal of historical research has been done in the last few decades, with much material that was buried in boxes and elsewhere having been read and studied. Both in efforts like Jervis Underwood's
Centennial History and other projects, that history has been disseminated much more widely than I can remember being the case back when I was in college. I do think I can safely say that collegiate members these days are much more familiar with, or at least have much greater access to, Sinfonian history than was the case when I pledged.
BTW, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia officially withdrew from the Professional Fraternity Association yesterday (August 13).