By Chris Brook

Saturday evening, as the snow fell in droves, 13 pharmacy majors gathered in the Curry Student Center for the culmination of two weeks of pledging to the university’s latest professional fraternity, Phi Delta Chi. The finale came as the organization received its charter from Grand President Tom Ellington.

But one pledge anticipated the event more than all his peers. Senior pharmacy major John Vlahopoulos saw more than a year of planning come to fruition, after laying the framework for Phi Delta Chi nearly 18 months ago.

“I’ve been at Northeastern for so long,” Vlahopoulos said. “I’ve just wanted to leave my mark in one way or another, I figured the best way to do that was to establish this fraternity.”

Vlahopoulos began the planning for Phi Delta Chi (PDC) approximately a year and a half ago, after attending the RXPO, an in-house expo geared to the pharmacy world. From there, Vlahopoulos approached Northeastern regarding the fraternity and got the ball rolling for the club’s initiation. At first, there were 30 students contending for the fraternity, but middler Peter Millin said the group was whittled down to the current 13 over a two-week period.

“We know there’s one pharmacy organization on campus, but that one (Lambda Kappa Sigma) is more mixed-gender, and while women are welcome here, we wanted to start this organization to be more male-focused,” Millin said.

Lambda Kappa Sigma had its Alpha Rho chapter at Northeastern reactivated in 2002.

Vlahopoulos also cited how the school of pharmacy isn’t big enough on its own, so PDC is hoping to use this to its advantage, by “catering to the major’s specific needs.”

Over the last two weeks, the 13 prospective brothers also received guidance and advice from PDC’s Eta chapter, based out of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy (MCP) on Longwood Avenue. Members of the MCP chapter, who were present at Saturday night’s initiation ceremony and banquet, acted like “real ‘big brothers’ to the PDC” hopefuls, Ellington said.

Much like other fraternities, the two-week pledging process allowed each of the potential members to get to know their brothers well and develop a sense of cohesion.

“The pledging process was a good time for all of us to be supportive of each other,” said Derek Hursey, a third year pharmacy major. “It’s one of those things that if you’re not doing it alone, it’s much better.”

According to its Web site, PDC was founded on