PULLMAN, Wash. — 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 St. Delta Upsilon closed in the fall of 1999
for lack of membership.
“We’re breaking new ground here,” said Nicholas Blanchard, assistant
professor at the WSU College of Pharmacy and co-faculty advisor for the Beta
Pi chapter of Kappa Psi.
Blanchard, 36 and single, said he will live in the faculty apartment on the first
floor of the house.
“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 is starting his second semester at WSU after relocating last fall from
Seattle. He completed his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of
Washington in 1999, and also spent the past two years as clinical pharmacy
coordinator at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle.
Blanchard and a handful of WSU Kappa Psi students will move into their new
house next week and start a remodeling project. The house is expected to open
for other Kappa Psi students in the spring.
The women will live on one floor of the three-story house and the men on
another. The first floor has the common living areas, kitchen, dining room,
laundry and meeting room. The house can accommodate about 60 students.
Kappa Psi was established at WSU in 1929, Blanchard said, and currently has
60 pharmacy student members.
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