The Mission of Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity is to encourage, nurture and support the art of music. Fredreka Howland, wife of William Howland, head of the Vocal Department of the University School of Music, Ann Arbor, Michigan, suggested that a musical sorority be organized which would aim for high standards of musicianship and for promotion of the highest type of music. She felt
there was a need for such an organization. Howland's studio to discuss this idea. There was some talk of a musical club but finally a Sorority was decided upon as better fitting plans for close bonds of friendship. It was decided that only students of fine character and special musical talent combined with excellent scholarship would be eligible for membership. On June 12, 1903, Sigma Alpha Iota Musical Sorority was founded. Together Elizabeth A. Campbell, Frances Caspari, Minnie Davis Sherrill, Leila Farlin Laughlin, Nora Crane Hunt, Georgina Potts, and Mary Storrs Andersen "solemnly pledged themselves to help each other with sisterly affection, to stand for the highest musical scholarship, for nobility and uprightness of character and for the maintenance of friendly and unselfish relations among women in the musical profession." In order to have the Sorority properly incorporated under Michigan State Laws, Articles of Association were drawn by Carl Storm, Attorney at Ann Arbor, signed on December 1, 1904, and recorded on December 15, 1904. Shortly thereafter a group of women at Northwestern University petitioned the new sorority to be charted as a chapter. This became our Beta Chapter. Since then the sorority, as it was called at the time, rightly changed its official name to an "International Music Fraternity"(Explanation) and has grown to over 200 chapters and over 100,000 initiated members.
