Coed Fraternity Established At WSU Pharmaceutical Group To Seek Recognition As Living Group

For the first time at Washington State University, students will be moving into a coed fraternity house and will apply for recognition as an official living group.

The Kappa Psi Pharmaceutical Fraternity will also be the first professional fraternity on campus to have its own house. The student chapter of the fraternity has signed a lease on the vacant Delta Upsilon fraternity house at 815 Ruby Street.

Delta Upsilon closed last fall for lack of membership.

“We’re breaking new ground here,” said Nicholas Blanchard, assistant professor at the WSU College of Pharmacy and co-faculty adviser for the Beta Pi chapter of Kappa Psi.

Blanchard, 36, said he will live in the faculty apartment on the first floor of the house, which can accommodate up to 60 students.

“I grew up in the Kappa Psi house in Chapel Hill, N.C., and I know the benefits,” he said. “This will, in my opinion, move us from a club to a true fraternal organization.”

Blanchard relocated to WSU last fall from Seattle, where he completed his doctor of pharmacy degree in 1999 and spent the past two years as clinical pharmacy coordinator at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center.

Blanchard and a handful of WSU Kappa Psi students will move into their new house next week and start a remodeling project. The women will live on one floor of the three-story house and the men on another.

The first floor has common living areas, kitchen, dining room, laundry and meeting room. Kappa Psi was established at WSU in 1929. It has about 60 pharmacy student members.