The University Senate’s Agenda Committee is creating a new ad hoc committee to explore alternatives to Syracuse University policies regarding class registration for students who have financial holds.

SU policy states that a student with a financial hold is prohibited from registering for or attending classes. A motion passed by both the Senate and SU’s Student Association call for the current policy to be changed.

The Senate is expected to discuss the issue again Wednesday during its January meeting. Its governing body’s first meeting of the spring 2019 semester.

At his January 2019 “Winter Message,” SU Chancellor Kent Syverud said Provost Michele Wheatly would work with the Senate to create a committee to propose other options to the current holds system and suggest ways to help students with financial difficulties.

During a Dec. 5 meeting, the Senate passed a motion — presented by Crystal Bartolovich, an associate professor of English, and Ryan Golden, SA’s Academic Affairs Committee chair — calling for the creation of the committee. The motion was previously approved by SA in October.

“The Syracuse University Senate expresses extreme concern for the detrimental effect to education and the student experience imposed by the current practice of financial holds,” the motion read.

Out of 15,000 undergraduates, less than 30 holds remain, Sarah Scalese, SU’s senior associate vice president for communications, said in an email.

“The staff in the Bursar’s Office stand ready to assist any student, regardless of the circumstances, reach a positive conclusion of the hold,” she said.

Bartolovich, who wrote the motion and sent it to SA for review, said in an email that she decided to do so because of personal experiences with students who had suffered from the policy, as well as support from colleagues who were also concerned.

She said it’s the norm for universities to use financial holds. That policy, though, doesn’t make sense because it prevents students from attending class while at the same time, in Syracuse’s case, requiring attendance from the first class meeting, she said.

From a teacher’s point of view, the holds not only hurt students’ educations, but bring damage to the whole university as a caring community, Bartolovich said.

“It would be great for SU to be a leader in saying universities can and should do better by their students than continuing the practice of forbidding registration and attendance for financial holds, especially for students who have already demonstrated good faith efforts to pay,” she said.

Golden said the current policy is punishing students financially, and financial holds can lead to students missing classes that are important to their majors. SU students are being treated like customers, not students, he said.

Another motion passed at the Dec. 5 meeting asked SU to suspend the financial holds policy until a study examining other payment options could be conducted, said Francine D’Amico, a teaching professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. D’Amico presented the motion.

Alternatives to SU’s current policy could include a grace period for late payments or a shift to taking payments at the end of the semester, in which the university would withhold a student’s transcript or diploma until payment is received, D’Amico said in an email.

D’Amico said in a later interview that since becoming a faculty member in fall 2000, she advised several students each semester who were blocked from enrolling in classes. She said she’s seen a student withdraw for a semester because their financial aid didn’t come in time, and that there were other students who needed to change their program of study because of financial holds.

“It’s just not a logical way to do things if our goal is to help students complete their academic program,” she said.

Bartolovich said she would like to see SU’s current financial policy ended, as well as the implementation of enhanced financial advising and assistance services for students. She said she is hoping the committee will develop ways to help students rather than penalize them.

A delayed payment method would allow students to take classes and be an active student while giving them time to work on their financial situations, Golden said.

“I don’t think there’s any real easy solution,” D’Amico said. “I think they all need to be examined to see what the impact on students would be and what the impact on the university’s ability to pay its own bills would be.”

Published on January 29, 2019 at 11:10 pm

Contact India: irmiragl@syr.edu