By Erin Miller

Editor in chief

When former Calvin student John Doe*'s registration was revoked in December, he began what he thought was the right course of action to rectify the situation. In the end, that course led to his expulsion from Calvin.

Doe* returned home to Nigeria and got his father to wire the $9,500 he had owed since the beginning of the fall semester before the final deadline - the beginning of second semester - given to him by Financial Services and Vice President for Administration, Finance and Information Services Henry DeVries.

He admits that he owed the money, but that neither he nor his father knew that at the time.

``My dad wasn't sure what he owed,'' Doe* said. ``He thought he wasn't owing anything. It wasn't an intentional thing.''

Although he is upset about the situation in which he left Calvin, Doe* said, it was important for him to discuss the treatment he received from the administration, particularly from DeVries and Bursar Amy Deleeuw.

From the beginning of his encounters with Deleeuw, he said, she did not seem to like him. On their last encounter, an encounter at which he admits he was upset, he said she ordered him to leave her office and threatened to call Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS).

``The worst thing is the threat,'' Doe* said. ``Why do you threaten to deport someone?''

Deleeuw declined to comment to Chimes, but DeVries attempted to clarify the threat, which he says came at the end of a ``rather heated interchange between Amy and John*.''

Doe* immediately went to Admissions Assistant Jo Cooper and International Student Advisor Linda Bosch, both of whom work extensively with international students, and reported the conversation. Deleeuw spoke with DeVries after the conversation.

``She said to me, and these aren't her exact words, `I really shouldn't have brought that up,'' DeVries said. ``He [Doe*] had exhausted her patience.''

`The check is in the mail'

Doe*'s payment did not arrive before the deadline, and he was consequently not allowed to enroll in classes, a situation that, if not fixed quickly, would cause him to lose his student visa, which allows him to study in the United States. In fact, the money did not arrive at Calvin until Feb. 9, after the last day for adding classes.

Had he not eventually been able to enroll elsewhere, Doe* would have been considered ``out of status.'' He would have had to re-apply for his visa, paying $120 and providing an in-depth explanation of just why he went out of status. If INS believed his reasons, Doe* would have been allowed to stay. If they did not, he would have had to leave the country.

Doe* approached Deleeuw and DeVries to find a way to be let into the classes, classes he had been attending with the permission of the professors since the beginning of the semester. Doe* was told that he could not officially register for those classes even though his account was caught up.

The reality of the original problem, DeVries said, is much more complex than Doe*'s story. DeVries said that Doe* was given plenty of notice that his bill was overdue. He pointed out that Doe* was one of 130 students to receive notices in the fall semester that their accounts had a significant amount still outstanding, all were above the limit of $2,500 the college allows students to have while still being allowed to enroll.

Between the time those students were notified and the deadline of the beginning of the spring semester, DeVries said, 125 made some sort of arrangement for the payment of the outstanding funds.

``John* had none of these arrangements made,'' he said. ``He showed the money was in transit. The college said `having the check in the mail' is not an adequate explanation. It was not a surprise. He was not singled out for enforcement.''

More problems emerge

But, the late payment was just the beginning of Doe*'s problems. Because he had expected the money to arrive in time to register for classes, Doe* spoke with several of his professors in the Economics and Business Department and received permission to attend his classes there. Doe* claims to also have spoken with a philosophy professor about attending class. Doe* said he did receive a syllabus, but then learned that he would not be allowed to register, so he decided against attending that class.

That professors allowed Doe* to sit in classes for which he was not registered shows a lack of trust between professors and the administration, Provost Joel Carpenter said.

``I think professors ought to have some confidence when the registrar says the students aren't paid [up for the semester],'' Carpenter said. ``I don't think it's right to admit the student anyway.''

Roland Hoksbergen, chair of the economics and business department, does not agree. Though Hoksbergen did not speak with Doe* when he first returned to Calvin, he was aware that Doe* had received permission from professors in that department to attend classes.

Allowing students who have not yet paid for classes to sit in when they know the money is on the way does not set a bad precedent at all, Hoksbergen said.

``When I heard about what was happening, [allowing Doe* to attend classes] seemed like a totally reasonable thing,'' Hoksbergen said. ``I thought they [the professors] had behaved rationally. I can't imagine students sitting in a class they're not getting credit for. If he were just interested in sitting in the class, he could pay to be a visitor. Doe* wants to get credit; if he doesn't pay, he doesn't get credit.''

Through all of this discussion and waiting for the wire transfer to arrive, Doe* had continued to work at his on-campus job. After working on days in three pay periods, he was alerted by his supervisor that he should not have been working on campus at all, because he was not enrolled as a student.

He was also told that he would not be paid for his work. For Doe*, who was already upset that he was not allowed to enroll in classes, this, coupled with the confiscation of his student ID card, was too much. He already knew that he couldn't get back into Calvin and began seriously working to enroll at Davenport University in Grand Rapids. Doe*'s father, still confused about the state of his son's account, asked Doe* to get an account statement. Doe* said he himself e-mailed Deleeuw several times, never receiving an answer. It was at this point that Doe* visited Deleeuw's office demanding a statement.

Doe* said Deleeuw told him that DeVries had instructed her not to give Doe* the statement. DeVries said the statement was not printed out for Doe* because the new information was not fully entered and nothing on the statement that would print out would be new since Doe* received a statement in December. DeVries also said Deleeuw told Doe* that, at that point, his account was no longer in arrears.

A new policy is enforced

Last summer, the college cabinet - composed of high-ranking administrative officials, including the Vice Presidents and the Provost - met and discussed unpaid student debts.

Some students were building up too much debt, DeVries said, while being allowed to attend classes. Because tuition is an important force in running Calvin, allowing students to build up such debt had the potential to hurt the college.

In recent years, students with significant and growing debts were often able to slip by with promises of payment which sometimes was forthcoming and other times was not. The college's policy has always been for the bursar to notify the registrar's office when a student's debt has exceeded the maximum allowed. At that point, the registrar must freeze the student's account. Students with frozen accounts are not able to sign up for classes until they make payments on their tuition.

The cabinet agreed to return to a more ``stringent'' approach to enforcement of what was the current policy at the time, a $3,000 cap on debt before freezing accounts. They then decided to lower that cap for Interim and the spring semester.

``The college can't go five figures in arrears and carry peoples' debts,'' Carpenter said. However, he added, Doe* was caught in the transition. ``There's a bit of a buzzing among students that you can go to class [without being caught up in payments] and we're not going to allow it anymore. I think Mr. Doe* got caught in the change and the college is getting blamed for it.

``We really have turned a hard corner in our financial policy,'' he added.

Part of Doe*'s being caught in the transition was counting on the old system of being able to slide by with debt. Carpenter said a new, early warning system notifying students that they are about to have their accounts frozen is being implemented.

Calvin's hopes for the new policy include creating an environment in which students are discouraged from building up so much debt while in college that, when they graduate, it is unmanageable. For example, DeVries said, it is with the interests of the students in mind that Calvin does not allow students to pay tuition with a credit card. While government loans students are allowed to charge interest, he explained, it is not nearly as high as the interest students would be charged on credit cards.

Other students' problems

By far, the most vexing thing for international students interviewed was problems that occurred while they were attempting to transfer their tuition from banks in their home country to Calvin, problems similar to the one's Doe* had in February. Many students from Nigeria gave similar stories of difficulties in transferring money.

Hoksbergen said that the wire transfer system can be unreliable regardless of where the money originates; he himself has been overseas, transferred money from his account in the United States to a local bank only to wait three weeks before the second bank receives any notice that the money was ever wired.

``The whole transfer system is quite long,'' said Grace Yakubu, a sophomore from Nigeria. ``My dad sent money from England and it took six weeks.''

However, not every student with problems transferring money has problems with the way Calvin treated their situation.

Sophomore Esi Avbuere, also from Nigeria, said when her parents attempted to transfer money earlier this semester, their bank in Nigeria requested new forms, a copy of her passport and a letter of admission from Calvin. Because Avbuere knew the money would not arrive before she needed to make a payment, she approached Deleeuw and explained the situation.

She said Deleeuw helped her contact first the Nigerian embassy in New York City, then the one in Washington, D.C. for the proper paperwork to process her wire transfer.

A broader problem?

But, when looking at Doe*'s situation in particular, some students, faculty members and professors have asked why, in his case, no similar solution was worked out. Hoksbergen said that, at least in outward appearances, the situation seems indicative of a larger problem.

``I don't see why they chose, after he paid, to take such a hard line with him,'' Hoksbergen said. ``It seems incredible and un-Christian. [Because] the administration had a number of problems with students from Africa and Nigeria, they then treated John* as if he was in that same category while it does not seem to me that he was. He was lumped in a group of people because of his nationality.''

Both Carpenter and DeVries said that the decision to revoke his enrollment and not accept his payment after the deadline for adding classes have nothing to do with his nationality or his being an international student.

``I don't think we're looking at any sort of pattern here,'' Carpenter said. ``This is not really an international student story. This is a story of a student who got behind his accounts.''

DeVries added to Carpenter's sentiments, adding that he did not see wire transfers as causing an unusual amount of problems.

``There's no unique target for any group of students,'' DeVries said. ``If it happened to one student or three international students, that would be discriminatory. [About] 130 students were not allowed to register in the fall. It was not a small, selected group.

Furthermore, DeVries added, the problems Doe* experienced with his wire transfer should not have come into the college's decision, because all international students have some problems. More pertinent problems, DeVries said, would be inflation and fluctuating exchange rates.

``There are challenges in banking all over the third world,'' DeVries said. ``The vast majority of our students have no difficulty.''

But using international wire transfers can be difficult.

``There seems to be no reliable and constant pattern,'' DeVries said. ``It's not as reliable as using your ATM. International wire doesn't have as much immediacy.''

Looking to the future

Doe* is now enrolled full-time at Davenport University, where the spring semester began Monday. The whole situation, Doe* said, has been unfair.

``It's total maltreatment,'' he said. ``Right now, I'm so set in my mind. I don't think I even want to come back.

``International students don't have a voice. In most schools they have an international student office. There's no good communication with the administration.''