Phi Mu Alpa Sinfonia- Alumni Connections- Alumni Affairs Committee

August, 2000

Alumni Affairs Committee
Assembly 2000 Final Report
"Working to Build Your Future!"

The Alumni Affairs Committee worked over the 1997-2000 Triennium to create a comprehensive alumni program for the fraternity that would foster participation by all membership classes. This report summarizes the status of those efforts and proposes a new model for the Alumni Affairs Committee of the next triennium.

Alumni Associations

Alumni associations should be the backbone of the fraternity's alumni program. They provide the platform from which alumni may continue their involvement with the fraternity, while not demanding the enormous amounts of time and energy required to operate a collegiate chapter. While it takes twelve Alumni Brothers to sign the petition necessary to start an alumni association, only four Brothers are needed to maintain an association with yearly dues and a membership/accomplishments report. Activities undertaken by associations, this Triennium, include:

Sponsoring a Province Wide American Music Festival
Singing for the President's Annual Christmas Ball at the White House
Hosting a summer picnic for members and their significant others
Organizing a horseback riding trip complete with three alarm chili
Providing alumni representation at province, regional and national events

The list goes on, but this should just whet your appetite. If you are interested in starting an alumni association in your area, just contact the national headquarters or your local province leadership for more information.

Collegiate Chapters

Creating dedicated alumni begins at the level of the collegiate chapter and involves a variety of approaches.

Alumni Secretary Manual and Leadership Manual Insert

An important resource for any officer is a bank of ideas from which to choose. With this in mind, the Alumni Affairs Committee undertook the revising and updating of the Alumni Blueprint Manual. The resulting Alumni Secretary manual was submitted for approval to the National Executive Committee at the beginning of the Assembly and should be available for general distribution in the very near future. Copies of the recommended document are being distributed at this Assembly, so seek out a National Staff Member for an extra copy. The committee also made minor revisions to the Leadership Manual Insert for Alumni Secretaries.

Alumni Advisors

After conducting internal and external research, the Alumni Affairs Committee recommended that the fraternity explore the concept known as team advising. In short, team advising would allow chapters to have another advisor known as the alumni advisor. The alumni advisor would be the fraternity’s representative to the chapter and vice-versa. He would concentrate on fraternal issues such as meeting procedure and decorum, the probationary membership program and province, regional and national events. The faculty advisor would become the school’s representative to the chapter and vice-versa. His focus would center on keeping abreast of school policies for student organizations as well as monitoring and providing support to the academic careers of the chapter members. Rather than attempt to force this idea on every chapter, the committee is recommending that individual chapters, in consultation with their Province Governors, experiment with this program and tailor it to meet their own needs. For more information, contact a National Staff member for the idea paper upon which this program is based.

Alumni Mentors

What is an "Alumni Mentor" Program?

A program in which Sinfonian Alumni will have the opportunity to serve as mentors (trusted advisers and friends) to collegiate members of local Sinfonian chapters.

Goals

To serve as a vehicle with which alumni are able to keep in closer and more active contact with the fraternity.
To involve and help acquaint alumni with local chapters and their collegiate members.
To give a direct means for alumni to share helpful ideas with collegiate chapters - ideas which have been gleaned from experiences as a professional and a Sinfonian.
To give encouragement to collegiate members by making available unique, professional experiences, brotherly advice, and good role models.
To serve as an impetus for active participation of alumni in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.
To give collegiate chapters a means of fulfilling the Alumni Relations Citation Award.

Guidelines

Alumni and collegiate members must be Sinfonians in "good standing".
Alumni do not have to be an alumnus of the chapter for which they are serving as a mentor.
A thorough screening process should be used in the selection of interested Alumni and Collegiates (it is recommended that a questionnaire be made available).

Implementing the "Alumni Mentor Program"

Each participating chapter should establish either an Alumni Mentor Committee or an Alumni Mentor Coordinator. (The Alumni Secretary might be best suited to serve as chairman of this committee or the coordinator.)
The Committee/Coordinator would be responsible for:

Compiling a list of area alumni (the list needs to include name, address, telephone number, email address, profession, and special interests.)
Contacting alumni via letter with an explanation of the Alumni Mentor Program. Included with the letter would be a questionnaire that collects pertinent information necessary to determine possible matches with collegiate members.
Provide collegiates with a list of possible mentors so they can make a choice of an alumnus who shares similar interests and furnish necessary information for initial contact and meetings.
Making sure that Alumni Mentors are regularly informed of chapter activities so that they can plan for their attendance at chapter meetings and functions if they so desire. This may be done in a number of ways (i.e. provide a "chapter calendar" for the mentor, make regular contact via email, etc.)
The Brothers involved would be responsible for deciding their own activities, frequency, etc. This portion of the process does not need to be monitored--only encouraged.

Suggestions and Ideas

Suggestions for pairing of Mentors with Collegiate Members:

Music education majors with area band, choir and/or orchestra directors.
Music Business majors with publishers, music store owners, ensemble managers, recording engineers, etc.
Performance majors with various professional musicians in the area.
Non music majors with someone close to the members major.

Possible activities for Mentors and Collegiate Brothers:

Sharing a meal

Having collegiate member over for dinner with Mentor's family
"Going out" for dinner, coffee, dessert, etc.

Having collegiate member as a guest at Mentor's work place (give him the "grand tour")when such a visit would be appropriate.
Have Collegiate Member invite Mentor to attend a concert of the member's performing ensemble.
Invite the Mentor/s to participate in the following:

A meeting as the "guest speaker/s" or clinician/s for the evening.
In a chapter function (i.e. - American Music Recital - as a performer or MC, and certainly as a member of your singing group.)
Your chapter's initiation ritual - if not participate, at least just to attend.

Feel free to invite mentors to your weekly meetings and other functions. Even though alumni members do not have a vote, it is nice to have their input and certainly their support.

Since they will be active alumni, The Alumni Mentors are strongly encouraged to pay their alumni dues.
Questionnaires might include the following information:

Full name
Address - both home, mailing, and work
Telephone numbers - both home and work
Email address
Chapter and school affiliation and dates of initiation and graduation.
Offices held in Sinfonia and other interesting Sinfonian information.
Major and minor in college - degrees earned
Collegiate organizations and interests
Professional affiliations
Work history - years at present job, etc.

There might be some kind of "Initiation Ceremony" for recognizing Alumni Mentors.
Administration of the Alumni Mentor Program will need to come from within the individual chapter. The National Headquarters provides encouragement and advice for the program.

Province Alumni Coordinators

Having an alumni program is not enough. The fraternity must also have Brothers who will take the program to the provinces where it can be implemented on the local level. To meet this need, the Alumni Affairs Committee worked with two Province Governors to create a pilot position for the province level known as the Province Alumni Coordinator. Brothers in this position would be responsible for promoting activity that would include all aspects of the proposed national alumni program, i.e. alumni associations and interest groups, alumni mentor programs, alumni-centered collegiate chapter programming, team advising, etc. These Brothers would spend their time cultivating other Brothers to actually run the programs, so they wouldn't have time to do the detail work themselves. They would function more like recruiters and managers than workers. These positions would be ideal for alumni wanting to build their credibility in the fraternity. Rather than attempt to force this idea on provinces, the committee is recommending that individual provinces experiment with this program and tailor it to meet their own needs. For more information, contact a National Staff member for the report detailing the success of the two current Province Alumni Coordinators, John Heath (Province 20) and Jeffrey Hoffman (Province 27).

Alumni Affairs committee for the future

While the future of the Alumni Affairs Committee and its goals is the responsibility of the next National Executive Committee, the following recommendation is submitted to the national fraternity for study and consideration. It is hoped that the experience of past and current Alumni Affairs Committees may be passed on to the collective Sinfonia in order to provide guidance for the mission of future Alumni Affairs Committees.

The time for creating more policies and programs is past. Now is the time for action and implementation of existing programs. Therefore, future Alumni Affairs Committees should be made up of regionally-based, traveling consultants. These Brothers should be chosen based upon their ability to cover part to most of their traveling expenses (they wouldn't be expected to travel far outside of their immediate geographical region) and their commitment to travel at least once a quarter for the entire triennium. Their job would be to take the fraternity's existing Alumni Program, i.e. alumni associations and interest groups, alumni mentor programs, alumni-centered collegiate chapter programming, team advising, etc. and spread it to as many of the chapters and associations in their area as possible. This program would be set apart by being nationally run and administered as opposed to the voluntary, province-level Province Alumni Coordinator program.

Past AAC Reports

The Alumni Affairs Commitee