Last week 533 students who had an outstanding balance or registration hold on their Bursar’s account were removed from their classes.

Students and faculty speculate that the cancellations could be credited to the implementation of Banner – Kent State University’s Enterprise Research Planning application that generates most of the records dealing with students’ accounts.

Removing students from classes for non-payment has been standard for years, university officials said.

In November, all billing data was shifted into Banner. This includes tuition, room and board and parking charges on an account.

Since the information now falls within the Banner system, the first thought was to blame the recent change.

“This process isn’t new,” said Barbara Boltz, project director for Networking and Administration. “It is a normal process that the Bursar’s Office runs every semester.”

Bursar Leslie Carter said the course of action has not changed since the shift.

“The process is the same as far as time frames and time periods,” Carter said. “The only difference is how we get the information we need.”

The Bursar’s Office has also been more flexible in giving students a three-to-four-day grace period because of the transfer to Banner this semester.

But students are still aggravated.

Vince DeLorenzo, a junior political science major, lost all of his classes because of this kind of mix-up.

“After the Bursar’s Office took me out (of my classes), they couldn’t get any of them back,” DeLorenzo said. “I had to make a completely new schedule, and I couldn’t get any of the classes I originally had.”

The Bursar’s Office Web site states that it cannot rebuild individual schedules that were dropped for non-payment.

“If it is an error on our part,” Carter said. “We will try to fix it, but it is up to the student to re-register for their classes.”

However, no notice of potential cancellation is communicated before it takes place in order to prevent the problem.

“The only thing the students had were the published due dates that they received,” Carter said.

Although this is nothing new, DeLorenzo hopes for a change in the future.

“I just didn’t know I was going to get taken out of my classes,” he said. “I think they should probably do a better job of warning students about what is going to happen, like send an e-mail or make a phone call or something.”

Carter said there are plans to fix this. By the fall, the Bursar’s Office will be sending e-mails to warn students that a payment has not been received.

Contact information services reporter Katie Huntley at [email protected].