Isso estaria ocorrendo porque não há um registro "A" configurado para kent.edu, mas há um configurado para www.kent.edu. A cadeia de lógica que usei (no Linux) para determinar isso:
dig kent.edu ns
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> kent.edu ns ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55191 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 3
;; QUESTION SECTION: ;kent.edu. IN NS
;; ANSWER SECTION: kent.edu. 223 IN NS dhcp.net.kent.edu. kent.edu. 223 IN NS ns.net.kent.edu. kent.edu. 223 IN NS adns03.net.kent.edu.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns.net.kent.edu. 231 IN A 131.123.1.1 dhcp.net.kent.edu. 231 IN A 131.123.252.2 adns03.net.kent.edu. 231 IN A 128.146.94.250
;; Query time: 1 msec ;; SERVER: 10.0.3.254#53(10.0.3.254) ;; WHEN: Wed Jan 1 17:00:57 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 135
dig @ 131.123.1.1 kent.edu a
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> @131.123.1.1 kent.edu a ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22704 ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
;; QUESTION SECTION: ;kent.edu. IN A
;; AUTHORITY SECTION: kent.edu. 300 IN SOA ns.net.kent.edu. postmaster.net.kent.edu. 23142476 1200 180 2419200 300
;; Query time: 265 msec ;; SERVER: 131.123.1.1#53(131.123.1.1) ;; WHEN: Wed Jan 1 17:01:56 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 80
dig @ 131.123.1.1 www.kent.edu a
; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> @131.123.1.1 www.kent.edu a ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 9928 ;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 3, ADDITIONAL: 3 ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available
;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.kent.edu. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION: www.kent.edu. 300 IN CNAME www-new.kent.edu. www-new.kent.edu. 300 IN A 131.123.246.53
;; AUTHORITY SECTION: kent.edu. 300 IN NS adns03.net.kent.edu. kent.edu. 300 IN NS ns.net.kent.edu. kent.edu. 300 IN NS dhcp.net.kent.edu.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns.net.kent.edu. 300 IN A 131.123.1.1 dhcp.net.kent.edu. 300 IN A 131.123.252.2 adns03.net.kent.edu. 300 IN A 128.146.94.250
;; Query time: 274 msec ;; SERVER: 131.123.1.1#53(131.123.1.1) ;; WHEN: Wed Jan 1 17:02:20 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 177