Province 3 Alumni Resources

Greetings fellow Sinfonians!

My name is Timothy Weale, and I'm the Alumni Coordinator for Province Three. I was initiated in the fall of 2000 at the Phi Omega chapter (University of Dayton), where I received my degree in 2003. After graduation, I moved to Columbus in order to begin graduate work at The Ohio State University. Recently, I spent two years as the Alumni Secretary for the Beta Xi (OSU) chapter and helped to start the Central Ohio Alumni Association, where I have served as Secretary and Webmaster before being named Alumni Coordinator in 2005.

I have set this website up for one purpose -- to be a portal for all alumni-related things in Province Three.

For too long, the Alumni Relations Officer (formerly Alumni Secretary) position was held in low regard by the chapter and oftentimes was an afterthought in elections. It's a difficult position that requires a lot of independent work, has little guidance and depends on tireless (and often one-sided) communication. It was a frustrating office that usually yielded few long-term results. Because of this, alumni relations suffered.

The Sinfonia is a lifelong commitment. Only a few years ago, many brothers viewed initiation as the end of their learning and growing as Sinfonians ­ once you were initiated, there was nothing else to learn. You hung out for a few years, graduated and then you said, "I used to be in that fraternity". My goal is to get all members to see that collegiate membership is only the beginning of their association with Phi Mu Alpha.

This "Alumni Question" is the next frontier for our fraternity and has the potential to change this organization for the better. Even without some of the philosophical discrepancies we hold with certain alumni, this task holds huge organizational and logistical problems -- in Province Three alone, we have over 1000 "lost" alumni, with countless more unmailable.

For the Alumni Relations Officers, there's been a significant amount of work in the past few years to energize the office and help us better engage our alumni. The chapters have generated a lot of ideas and developed local resources, but there has been no central repository for the sharing of this information. Therefore, I hope that we can utilize this site as a place where you can communicate, share experiences, and get ideas for new ways to involve your alumni in chapter operations.

For alumni brothers, I hope that this will be a site for you to reconnect with the brotherhood and learn more about the current state of the Sinfonia. We not only have an active alumni association in the province, but also the potential for new ones in Cincinnati, Dayton and Eastern Ohio. In addition to alumni associations, chapters can benefit from alumni involvement -- participation at rituals, attendance at recitals and even showing up to meetings. An alumnus' involvement need not be a full-time commitment -- just a small show of support can be a tremendous start. Hopefully, this site will help you figure out something you can still do to support Sinfonia.

The task is daunting. However, knowing the quality of brothers in Sinfonia, I have no doubt that we will be able to achieve great things in the years to come.

In Phi, Mu and Alpha,

Timothy Weale
Province Three Alumni Coordinator