governance. The most fundamental local unit is the collegiate chapter chartered at a college or university. Phi Mu Alpha also charters local alumni associations, which are issued to groups of alumni members in a particular geographic area. Chapters and alumni associations are grouped into provinces. A National Executive Committee, elected by a National Assembly at each triennial National Convention, governs the national organization. Phi Mu Alpha has several identifying symbols, including a membership badge (pin); the colors red, black, and gold; a coat of arms; a flag; and an official flower, the chrysanthemum. History Founding Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia was founded as the Sinfonia Club by Ossian Everett Mills, the bursar of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Mills was profoundly interested in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual development of the conservatory's students, and had a tradition of hosting devotional meetings going back as far as 1886. Mills sought to encourage the personal development of the young men at the conservatory through wholesome social interaction among them, leading him to suggest that the older students of the conservatory invite the newer students to a social reception on September 22, 1898. Several of the men who attended the reception began to discuss the possibility of organizing a more permanent social club, and a meeting was planned for October 6, 1898, for that purpose. The fraternity attributes the name "Sinfonia" to prominent American composer George W. Chadwick, then director of the conservatory. Chadwick was elected as the second honorary member of the club after Ossian Mills, and based his suggestion for the club's name on the name of a student organization he was a member of in Leipzig, Germany. Prior to 1947, the legal corporate name of the fraternity was Sinfonia Fraternity of America, though the Greek letters Phi, Mu, and Alpha had been associated with the fraternity since at least 1904. The delegates to the 29th National Convention in 1946 approved changing the corporate name to Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America, which it remains today. Expansion The Sinfonia Club became a national fraternity in 1900 with the admission of a group of men at the Broad Street Conservatory of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, under the direction of Gilbert Raynolds Combs. The traditional date given in fraternity resources for the founding of Beta Chapter at Broad Street Conservatory is October 6, 1900. However, while the petitioning