Music Fraternity at AU?

Music Fraternity at AU?

On a typical Thursday night, Barry Weinstein can be found slaving away practicing his trumpet in a practice room at American University’s Katzen Arts Center… alone.

“It’s hard work, but I love my trumpet,” says Weinstein, a Sophomore Music Minor at American University. “Creating music is best exercised with a variety of talent and musical interpretations found dispersed across the campus. … it’s just really hard to find musicians to jam with,” he says.

This same frustration motivated the students at American University to create a chapter of Mu Beta Psi, a national honorary music fraternity. One of the oldest musical fraternities in America, Mu Beta Psi was founded in 1925 at North Carolina State University. Since then, Mu Beta Psi has become a recognized fraternity at 19 schools, but only nine out of the 19 schools house active chapters.

The fraternity markets itself as a service and music fraternity, and began as a male-only honor fraternity for colleges that did not offer a Music major. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the fraternity admitted women. Regardless, members of the fraternity are referred to as “Brother’s” even if they are female. By the year 2000, the fraternity grew to include multiple colleges through the eastern part of the United States.

Mu Beta Psi runs several scholarship programs, and are known for being extremely involved in their school’s music departments. Andy Stephens, the National Vice President of Expansion of Mu Beta Psi explains, “Every one of our Chapters has service programs. Some of them concentrate on helping support their marching and pep bands, others usher concerts and plays, and some work with vocal groups. Through our connections with college and local groups, our Chapters often host Battles of the Bands and large vocal concerts,” says Stephens. Mu Beta Psi takes part in all types of jobs that focus on helping out the arts; from ushering musical performances to cleaning up after theatrical shows. They ensure that band performances run smoothly, and help all bands, both large and small ensembles.

Brothers also place posters around campus to advertise for upcoming musical events. Some chapters host spaghetti dinners to get the brothers acquainted, and host formals for the students to bond with each other. “We host social events with college musicians, whether or not they're involved in music groups. It's no use being in a tight-knit group if you can't have fun together!” says Stephens.

The actual process of becoming a colony, or chapter of the fraternity, is not too complicated, but it is quite time consuming. To become a colony, potential Brothers must go through a training period of several months. Stephens explains, “Many of our Brothers consider pledging or colonization to be like adding an extra class on your schedule. Over 8 to 10 weeks (dependent on scheduling conflicts), every colonist and pledge has to prove their commitment to our ideals of Music, Brotherhood and Service. We can't run a standard pledge term with no framework in place at American, so we take the base information about the Fraternity, combine it with notes on how best to run your future Chapter, and teach through lessons, interviews, and activities,” he says. For American University’s chapter, named the Tau Colony, the training period will not start until Spring Semester of 2011, and will last into early April.

“We will probably end up with a starting colony of 25-30 people, which is still double the amount necessary to start a colony. In the future, if AU continues to be enthusiastic about Mu Beta Psi, I think it has the potential to get pretty big,” says Claire Radziwon, Sophomore at American University. Radziwon was one of the founding students who came up with the idea of having a Mu Beta Psi at AU.

Radziwon explains that in order to establish a colony, a college must elect an Executive Committee, which includes President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Member-at-Large, and Librarian. As officers, the executive committee runs meetings, keeps track of what the colony is up to, and sets up the future Chapter’s traditions and role at their college. The Executive Committee is the main contact with the Performing Arts department, and with the school in general.

Each position is vital to the running of a Mu Beta Psi chapter, and each leadership role has specific criteria. The President must be the leader of the chapter, and essentially organize meetings and activities. The Vice President is primarily concerned with the internal health of the Chapter. The Secretary takes notes on the meetings and keeps documents organized. The Treasurer maintains the chapter financially and the Member-at-Large is in charge of finding out what is going on at other Chapters on the National level of the group. Executive Committee members have a larger time commitment than most.

Radziwon has hopes of becoming an officer of the first ever chapter of Mu Beta Psi. “If I get the position that I would like, I would be very excited about it because it would enable me to be an active participant in the growth and management of the fraternity,” she says.

Even with competent leaders, a new Chapter start-up does face a lot of problems in its first few years. According to Stephens, “Often, new Chapters take on too many responsibilities, and those come at the detriment of their Brothers' class work. They may also have trouble recruiting new members consistently, though it helps to draw from all music ensembles on campus as the AU group plans to do.”

New member recruitment does not seem to be an issue for the American University campus. Yiseon Song, a Sophomore at AU, is one of 44 members of American University’s Mu Beta Psi facebook group. She is eager to join and said, “I think it would be cool to do street performances!”

But, some students are not so excited about Mu Beta Psi. “Another fraternity?!” says Jacob Ross, a Junior at AU. “Honestly, the last thing American needs is another exclusive club. It feels like Greek life is taking over my college experience, and I’m not even Greek!”

Radziwon defends Mu Beta Psi saying, “Annija and I decided to start the AU Chapter because we were interested in Greek life, but decided none of the social sororities or professional fraternities were right for us. Then we realized that there was a section of students being left out of Greek life at AU; the musicians! We wanted to give those students, including ourselves, the opportunity to be in an organization that represented music.”

Although Barry Weinstein was excited at the prospect of a new way to meet musicians, he went to the first meeting, and did not find Mu Beta Psi to be appealing. Weinstein describes a “poor marketing strategy”, explaining, “it offered more points of service than points of personal benefit”. Cleaning up after band concerts seemed to be Mu Beta Psi’s greatest selling points at the first recruitment meeting on campus, leaving once excited potential members confused. “It’s just too bad!” says Weinstein.

For now, Weinstein will continue his late night solo-jam sessions; but made a few contacts with other musicians at the first Mu Beta Psi meeting.