DNS server for institution / ISP altered with patch. Now my servers won't locally resolve domain names. Is there a work around? or what do I need to tell the bozos upstream to fix?

The institution at which I have three servers is large enough to be its own ISP basically.  With the DNS threat, they 'patched' / updated their DNS servers.  Ever since then, however, I've been unable to resolve domain names from the servers I control.  With NSLookup, I can see one of the DNS servers on the institutional network, but still no dice.  I went out and purchased a bunch of recursive DNS services, as well as tried public DNS servers, but my servers apparently can't connect to these or are blocked.  Local IT support is not helpful or responsive, and I think they may need exact terms to solve anything.  Anywho, can someone guess what might be blocking my servers from linking to local 'ISP' DNS servers, as well as external DNS.  I've tried everything I know with and without the firewall on, so that is not the issue.  Reason aside, any suggestions?  The servers BTW are Windows Server 2003 Enterprise.