Chapters of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia - Naming Anomalies

Naming Anomalies

The list of chapters in the next section includes notes relating to the many quirks that have occurred in the history of the naming of chapters. Two names, Gamma and Zeta, were reissued in the Fraternity's early days, while two other names, Mu Epsilon and Mu Kappa, have never been issued and likely never will considering how far out of sequence they would be. The National Directory section of the Fraternity's web site shows that the name Mu Kappa was assigned to Kentucky State University, but all other records indicate that a chapter was never chartered there and that the name Mu Kappa was not issued elsewhere. During the 1950s and 1960s, rapid expansion meant that chapters were being chartered on dates very close to one another. In fact, in 1960 as many as ten chapters were chartered in the span of a single week. This resulted in many chapter names being issued that did not necessarily correspond to the relative order in which the chapters were chartered. Finally, there are two sheltering institutions that have each housed two chapters with different names. In both of these cases, the reason is that the first chapter chartered at the institution was expelled and the later petitioning group requested that a new chapter be installed instead of the expelled chapter being reactivated.