History
Washington State University has had a chapter of Psi Chi since the creation of the fraternity in 1929. In fact, WSU (then the State College of Washington) is one of the eleven founding schools of Psi Chi.
Psi Chi was formed at the University of Kansas in 1928. Students there had formed Beta Chi Sigma, a local psychology fraternity, and felt that a national psychology fraternity was needed. Letters of inquiry were sent to all colleges and universities in the country, asking whether support for such a fraternity existed. There was sufficient interest that a committee was created to develop a constitution, and a letter of invitation was sent to all schools that had expressed support for the fraternity, inviting them to send a representative to the 1929 meetings of the International Congress of Psychology to sign the constitution. WSC, along with ten other schools (Kansas, UCLA, Ohio University, Iowa State, Wittenberg, Southern Cal, Nebraska, Rutgers, and University of Chicago) sent a representative, faculty member Carl Erickson, and on September 4, 1929 the fraternity, officially called Sigma Pi, came into existence. Each of the ten schools signing the constitution was officially designated a "charter member." Ten other schools, all of whom affiliated with Sigma Pi by January 1, 1930, were also accorded charter status (an eleventh, Penn State, was later given charter status by special vote), but the original eleven have always been specially designated as the founding institutions. Thus, WSU is recognized by PsiChi as a founding school. Sigma Pi changed its name to Sigma Pi Sigma In December 1929, after it was discovered that another national fraternity was using the Sigma Pi name. The name changed again six months later, when it was learned that Sigma Pi Sigma was the name of a physics fraternity. The preference was for Psi Chi, though it was immediately discovered that Psi Chi was the name of a fraternity at Oregon State University (then College). That fraternity had coincidentally decided to affiliate with a larger national fraternity, and graciously agreed to cede the name "Psi Chi" to the psychology fraternity.
The first roster of members at WSC showed five members: Genette Brockhausen, Ruth Buchanan, Stanley Evatt, Elaine Ritchey, and Catherine Ross. There were also three alumni members: Consuelo Gilliland, Zeno Katterle, and Marjorie Shaw, listed because they had been instrumental in bringing in Psi Chi to WSC, but had graduated by the time the constitution was ratified. Dr. Erickson was the faculty advisor, and would remain so for the next 21 years. Later, the chapter officially recognized Buchanan, Gilliland, Katterle, Shaw, and Erickson as the "founding members" of WSC Psi Chi.
The contribution of Ms. Shaw is especially notable, because she was to soon play an important part in the development of social psychology. While in graduate school in the early 1930's, she conducted a study on the problem-solving ability of individuals versus groups, and demonstrated that groups were generally better than individuals at solving mental tasks. This was the first time that such a comparison had been made, and (though her conclusions were later modified by other researchers) today her study is regarded as one of the most important in the history of social psychology. Possibly the peak year for WSU Psi Chi was 1970. In that year, two of the three Psi Chi Research Awards, given for the best undergraduate research proposal, were given to WSU students, and the chapter's faculty advisor, Dr. Francis Young, served as the national president of Psi Chi.