Banner, an annoyance to students and faculty Junior tells NYC blackout • experience

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and resource "once someone fixes all be one unified record for each student However, Sicoli does have faith CJM722@CABRINI.EDU on one easy-to-use site. But is it so that the program will be a great tool easy to use? advising students and ways to email them. It was a problem because students would want her to sign forms from the registrar and she '\\,as not sure who their advisor was because she was unable to get the names of her students.

Banner, the new computer pro- Psychology professo Dr. s· oli the bugs in the system." gram implemented by Cabrini, is sup- was one of the professo ad a Psychology department chair Dr. posed to be user-friendly and a great hard time adjusting to the new Banner Anthony Tomasco also had some help to the faculty, staff, and students, system in the first couple of weeks. problems with the time out and login especially in the first couple of weeks She was unable to get a list of her system within Banner. of classes. However, that may not be the thought that one has experienced.

Banner is a fully integrated system that is in existence to meet the needs of higher education. Banner has a number of software applications that are created for student information on human resources and finances.

Some of the functions in which Banner was designed to do are: student records, financial aid, .tuition payment, faculty advising, course registration, grade reporting, and more.

"It was very stressful to learn in the beginning of the semester," Sicoli said for emailing compared to Webct, which only had one. And on top of all mto absolute chaos after one of the biggest and most de,,-astatmg ~-er outages hit on Thursday, August 14. 2003 at approxiimtel) ~:I I pm Southern Canada. ~lichigan, Ohio, Delaware, e\1oYork. New Jersey and Connecticut all suffered pov1,eroutages. Over 50 milhon people lost power in North America.

Conversely, Tomasco said, "it is frustrating in the beginning but you need to give it a few weeks to workout the problems."

He includes that Banner is used throughout the country and Drexel is an invaluable resource.

"I have confidence that it will smooth out very quickly,"Tomasco said.

Jamie Lewis, a junior communications major spent the summer interning in New York City. ~at sizzling hot summer day was one she will never forget. She ex.plainedthat the initial moment the lights went out was the most frightening.

"I honestly thought we were about to be bombed. I knew something was terribly wrong when the big television outside of Times Square turned from world news to a grey fuzzy screen," Lewis said. Lewis and her fnends decided walking towards their apartment would be the safest precaution they could take. And so their journey began.

Traffic was bumper to bumper both on the streets with cars and on the sidewalk with pedestrians. People were volunteering their time and safety by directing traffic because of useless traffic lights.

Taxi Cabs were parked on the sides of streets with their doors open and their radio's blaring the latest news. Lewis and her friends were able to catch word that the blackout was not a terroristic threat. No longer feeling threatened, the girls continued walking up and down the streets of New York.

Darkness set in and the eerie tall buildings seem to fade in the darkness. Bottles of water, batteries and ice were non-existent on the dark streets. Bars and local pizza places were open under candlelight for the sole purpose of getting rid of their food and drinks before they went bad. Most places had a limit as to how many items a person could buy. Lewis explained she waited in a line for 3 hours. They limited her to two pizzas only.

"My friends and I had to hide between two parked cars to eat our pizza because we were afraid someone would take it," Lewis said.

Unlike many of the people who were stranded in the city for the night and forced to sleep on the streets, Lewis and her friends made their way back to their 9th floor apartment. But none of them complained as they soon found it a blessing to be residing near the ground floor.

"That night we had people from the 14 and 15 floors knocking on our door begging us to let them sleep in our room because their room was stifling hot. We considered ourselves lucky," Lewis said.

Power was restored the next afternoon approximately by 12:45 pm. Virtually every business was closed because of the blackout and the day was referred to as a snow day in August.