Kappa Delta Pi is a coeducational international honor society for undergraduate and graduate students in education. Founded on March 8, 1911 at the University of Illinois, the society rewards scholarship and excellence in education.

Dr. S.A. Kruse, professor and head of the Department of Psychology and Education, was influential in the founding of Southeast’s chapter of Kappa Delta Pi. As a student he belonged to an honors fraternity and when he arrived at the campus in Cape Girardeau in 1895, he realized that something needed to be done to recognize student achievement. In 1916, Delta Delta Kappa, serving male honor students, was established. The men chose not to become co-ed, so the women launched their own society, Alpha Delta Phi, in 1917.

In 1923, when the Normal School became a State Teachers College, both groups began circulating petitions in favor of merging both organizations into one. Two yearslater, Dr. Kruse and the students finally succeeded in obtaining a charter for Kappa Delta Pi. On April 17, 1925, Dr. McCracken, Dean of Ohio University and president of Kappa Delta Pi, with the assistance of Dr. Wright, Dean of the School of Education of Washington University, installed the Alpha Eta chapter of Kappa Delta Pi, the Southeast Missouri State Teachers College.