Satellite Chapters?
 

Can someone explain what exactly this is and what it entails? I know I've sort of heard this before, but it seems very vague!

Thanks!

I've never really heard of this specific term before, nor have I heard of a similar concept outside of NPHC or other cultural organizations.

A "city-wide" chapter (or county-wide) is a chapter consisting of several schools in one area that do not or cannot support their own chapter on their own. A good example of a city-wide chapter is Omicron Pi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in DC - Georgetown U., Catholic University, and Trinity University.

Core chapters (called different things by different orgs) are chapters at several schools but are not city wide. There are chapters of Delta Sigma Theta like this in DC - one is at American and Georgetown, the other is as Catholic and Trinity.

A satellite chapter has a different connotation for me -- it sounds like one chapter having a branch at another university, functioning as two entities. Is this what you mean?

It is my understanding that city-wides are not affiliated with a campus at all while core (or whatever an org calls it) are attached to one campus but allow people from other campuses to join. In each case, all participating schools must be included on the charter. Would that be correct? My sorority has different terminology, but it's all the same thing.

I totally forgot to address the whole issue of recognition/access to benefits.

In Alpha specifically, whether it's a true city-wide or a segment of a city, at least one campus has to recognize the chapter. I do know that in other NPHCs, campus recognition isn't necessary for their city-wide chapters.

Ok, let me specify by saying that this is in regards to having a group at the same university, but at a different campus.

I really don't think this is possible when the campuses are separated by 200 miles, esp. considering the requirements involved. But someone has posed this question to us, and the idea was new to me, so I wondered if it was done anywhere else.

At a different campus, wouldn't that be a different chapter then?

^^^ Aren't those campuses separate entities within the Penn State system? Kind of like University of Texas and UT-Arlington? I think that's what moe.ron was saying; they should be separate chapters.

OK. I thought you were trying to say that the other campuses were just "Penn State Pt. 2 and 3" as opposed to being their own entities.

Penn State branch campus chapters
 

Those are completely different chapters. They are not "satellites" of any sort. They have no more in common than 2 chapters of the same group at, say, Pitt and Purdue.

Just making triple sure this is all clear.

Unless the campi are very close together and students regularly move back and forth between chapters for classes and other student activities, I don't think a "satellite" chapter is very feasible.

I would say that if the two campuses have separate offices of student life/activities, you should have separate chapters with separate charters.

George Mason University has two nearby campuses that use the same Student Life Office. But we also have a campus in the United Arab Emirates with its own student life office. If someone wanted to have Phi Sigma Kappa there (not terribly likely), it would be a different chapter.

I thought a satellite chapter was when one school(with a chapter) is so close to another(without a chapter, but with interested women) that they are allowed to bring in women from that other school knowing that the women will eventually form their own colony or chapter(satellite) where they will report not only to Regionals but to their Chapter of Origin while they work to recieve their charter. Does this make sense?

That makes sense, but I've never heard of that. What kind of authority would the chapter of origin have? What if the chapter contradicted the region/HQ?

Could this be in reference to the Kettering A/B situation?

What you're talking about sounds like a regular extension/expansion.

I'd say this is not at all like regular extension. Colonies do not report to other collegiate chapters, and I'd say most (if not all) do not affiliate with a chapter at a school they're not attending. At least not in the NPC. Is this something NPHC does?