Quote:
Originally Posted by Boodleboy322
Here we go again - Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia never really was a Professional Organization even though many brothers feel it was. The fact of the matter is that there was a period in which the fraternity went through an identity crisis and even affiliated with the National Professional Organizational Group (I don't remember their name). The group's foundations under our Founding Father were Social.
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Boodleboy, it is not helpful to rewrite history. I can assure you that when I pledged and was initiated Phi Mu Alpha
was a professional fraternity. Jervis Underwood's
Centennial History can assure you of that as well.
It is quite true that we were founded as a social fraternity for students of music. (That is, we were founded as a social fraternity but not a general fraternity.) But it is also quite true that as time went on, the Fraternity's leadership, for a variety of reasons that were not limited to an identity crisis, consciously positioned Phi Mu Alpha as a professional fraternity. Not only were we one of the founding members of the (male) Professional Interfraternity Conference and the (male and female) Professional Fraternity Association, we billed ourselves in literature and on our letterhead with this officially adopted tagline: "The Professional Fraternity for Men in Music." The result was a fraternity that acted something like a hybrid of a social fraternity and a professional fraternity, with a foot in both worlds. But officially, we were a professional fraternity.
When I pledged, the National Constitution stated: "Phi Mu Alpha is a fraternity representing the music profession." That language was deleted in 1985. By that time numerous impulses, which included but was not limited to Title IX and its requirement that professional fraternities be co-ed, caused us to do some soul-searching, go back to our roots, take one foot out of the "professional" side and plant both feet firmly in the social side.
Yes, our foundation was social. But it just isn't accurate to say that "Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia never really was a Professional Organization even though many brothers feel it was." If brothers initiated during that time "feel" it was, it is because the national fraternity governing documents and actions by the National Assembly said it was. We were social. Then we were professional, but with lots of social aspects still there. Then we were social again (but with aspects of professional that it has taken time to strip away).
Fraternally,
MysticCat
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