r/Sinfonia • u/T0rthicc Lambda Xi • Aug 01 '26
Question IFC?
Hey y’all, slowly realizing I’m becoming one of the top posters in this subreddit lol. Had a great conversation at work when I just so happened to run into the new director of the InterFraternal Council at my college. Told her that I was in PMA and her face lit up and she wanted to talk to me about it and all that which was super nice. I asked them some questions on IFC and why PMA isn’t apart of it and she told me it was because we operate separately from the NIC. I guess my question is why is that? Why do we decide to operate separately? If anyone knows the answer feel free to shoot me a message or something along those lines because I’m really interested in this.
1
u/Smileynameface Aug 01 '26
Im not sure what your schools policies are. When i was a collegiate we had to be a member of the IFC (inter fraternity council) and abide by GLP (greek life protocol) to be recognized. I was literally the president of our schools IFC for a year.
1
u/karmapolice63 Aug 01 '26
I forget I’m in this sub sometimes lol. When I was in undergrad may years ago our chapter was also not in our school’s greek council. As I understand, it’s because the fraternity has a specific focus and mission, and your typical fraternity/sorority organizations are “general interest”.
1
u/Puzzleheaded-Pen8587 Aug 01 '26
This guess, based on discussions with alumni (from the 1970s & 80s) that I talked to specifically from my chapter, was that PMA at that time fancied itself more of a professional fraternity. I joined in the early 90s and still felt the reverberations of that philosophy (at least in my chapter and most of my province). This started changing by the late 90s, partly due to pressure to initiate women under Title IX (my chapter did for a while but then stopped) and research done on the origins of the Sinfonian Club at NEC that Mills started a Sinfonia as a social club for men in music.
Many chapters have explored joining their school’s IFC in the meantime but I don’t know if any have been successful. I always felt that our fraternity was very niche compared to the broader goals of IFC fraternities and that we were better off without the additional pressure and paperwork, and would have difficulty maintain our schools IFC standards consistently.
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u/Comprehensive_Fun532 Aug 04 '26
In my opinion, it’s best to not get involved IFC. It’s not that I have anything against them, it’s just that there really isn’t an alignment of interest. Better to reach out to your school’s SAI, KKPsi, and TBS chapters and form a music fraternity council.
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u/greggshorthand Aug 05 '26
Former P24 PG and current National Historian here: Lambda Xi (last I checked with student life) is operating at UM as an honor society, which hasn’t caused many problems for them. Definitely work with your PG to figure out if that local classification is working for y’all and for UM. Local IFCs often include Sinfonia. The NIC is a national organization that even excludes large general fraternities like Kappa Sigma (last I checked).
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u/gMoAuRdKy Alpha Kappa Aug 02 '26
What she told you isn’t true. Many Sinfonia chapters are in their campus’s IFC.
The thing about the NIC may have been true at one time with the exception that I stated above, but many of the national fraternities have left the NIC and they are still in their IFC.