In 2019, when Caroline Ras heard the goal of the professional fraternity Lambda Kappa Sigma was to elevate women in pharmacy, “something just clicked,” she said. She knew she wanted to start a chapter at ACPHS.
Actually, what she did, along with five other students, was bring the professional organization back to campus. The original campus chapter of LKS was chartered exactly a century earlier, in 1919. Then called a sorority, it was small, given the number of women on campus, but managed to sponsor dances and “rush parties galore,” according to the College history page.
The current LKS chapter has grown to 43 members in just a few years. Now referred to as a fraternity, the members still mostly call themselves sisters, but anyone is welcome to join.
Ras, the chapter president (pictured fifth from left in the back row), and Past President Elizabeth Lambert (far left, back row) acknowledge that women in pharmacy have come a long way since even a generation ago. At an event they hosted last year featuring women alumni, most said they experienced few gender barriers in the field today; their bigger concern was work-life balance.
Still, Lambert said there is something special about the “sense of sisterhood” in LKS. It provides what she called “a family away from home.”
Over the summer, Lambert and other LKS sisters attended the fraternity’s annual convention in Wisconsin, where their chapter won a slew of awards. Lambert herself was named Collegiate of the Year.
What impressed the national organization? Lambert said it was the ACPHS chapter’s outreach to LKS chapters at other schools, and its participation in pharmacy advocacy events like Lobby Day. Oh, and also Ras’s Cricut cutting machine, which they have used to make promotional materials galore.