James Niedzinski
Equinox Staff
If you have lived on campus at Keene State College, you probably know somebody who has received a conduct warning or violation from a resident assistant.
Following the initial violation there will be e-mails, scheduling meetings that fit your schedule, and a seemingly endless stream of follow-up forms.
That was the old system, from Judicial Action from Pave Systems.
A new judicial and housing management system, purchased from CBORD Group Inc., hopes to solve these time-consuming problems.
Whether campus-wide or a laptop, chances are most students don’t think about updating or changing their software too often.
However, not every software update comes with the $200,000 price tag that CBORD (including the One Card System) does, and according to Laura Seriachick, chief information officer, that is not including the staff needed to run it.
The package does include new judicial software, housing and management software, and a new one card system that will allow the same card to be used for all student activities.
Software management and keeping updated software is crucial to running an effective and streamlined college experience.
Vice President of Student Affairs, Andy Robinson, shares some of his struggles working with the Pave software, “It hasn’t done what we’ve wanted it to do. It’s difficult to use and it’s fairly expensive. In theory anyway, you should have an easy way to refer to individuals and gather reports and statistics.”
Robinson also described the Pave software as cumbersome. “When you would spend time putting information in, the results were not always reliable.”
“I think another one of the issues is the compatibility with Datatel. Its [Pave software] ability to work with Datatel, there’s glitches and issues; it’s not really designed to work with the Datatel system,” Robinson said.
Datatel provides KSC, and many other schools, with a number of software needs; these include the school’s record for all student demographics, courses, grades, degree, financial and financial aid information.
Although this new software will not directly change any of the student conduct guidelines or rules, it could have an impact on them in the future.
“We hope eventually the new system will allow us to put in a system of fines that we have been talking about for years,” Robinson said.
New additions to the conduct guidelines are still in the works, and no new conduct rules are in effect due to the CBORD software.
According to Kent Drake-Deese, the director of Residential Life, CBORD will run alongside the Pave software in March. The Pave software license expires June 1, and CBORD will take over as the new software in the fall.
Drake-Deese, along with Amanda Warman, the director of Campus Safety, and Seriachick, formed a committee to consider the best software for the school.
He stated the committee contacted several other schools who use CBORD software, and also aired his grievances with the Pave software.
“It would take 10 minutes to do one letter in that program. For some reason, it was not working here for us. We had technical difficulty after technical difficulty, and we needed a change,” Drake-Deese said.
Mark Schmidl-Gagne, dispute resolution coordinator, also stated that the Judiciary Action program was problematic because of unexpected updates that do more harm than good, in addition to a lackadaisical customer service approach.
Drake-Deese also stated that no new conduct policy changes were in the immediate future; this change will just make the judicial and conduct process more simplified and streamlined.
Despite this, Schmidl-Gagne has stated that some minor changes will be expected when changing over to new software.
“There are always some changes to the business flow. You have a process by which things take place and depending on how the technology allows you to do things, you may need to make some changes,” Schmidl-Gagne said.
He also commented on the possibility of fines being introduced for conduct violations.
Schmidl-Gagne wanted to make sure that the new software would be able to create fines; however it is not one of the goals of the judicial system, but a possibility down the road.
The Zorn Dining Commons already uses the Odyssey software by CBORD in the meal plan and, according to Seriachick, CBORD and KSC have been in good relations and business partners since 1995.
In addition to the conduct, one card system, and dining areas, housing management will also see some new CBORD software.
The housing managment software will be put to the test this fall, when the software is used for the housing selection processes for next year’s on-campus students.
Drake-Deese stated that the ultimate goal is to have housing selection processes where students can do the entire process online. The system will eventually be able to see where you have lived, what year, with whom, and what your room will look like before you move in.
However these goals are a quite a ways away; getting acquainted to new software takes time.
James Niedzinski can be conacted at jniedzinski@ksc.mailcruiser.com.