With the strike involving Ontario college faculty now more than a month old, Cambrian College president Bill Best said he's confident the school year will not be lost.
“It's a matter of how we adjust the time frames of the academic year,” Best said.
“In reality, the semester and the school year just start to move further into the spring. It really doesn't move into that process where the academic year would be lost.”
The strike began Oct. 16. Talks resumed briefly between the College Employer Council and OPSEU, which represents the 12,000 college professors, before breaking down again last week.
The council asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to schedule a vote on its offer, which is happening this week between Tuesday and Thursday.
Unsurprisingly, given that offer isn't a negotiated settlement, OPSEU is urging its members to vote no.
Last week, Cambrian put out a revised school year based on classes resuming by at least Nov. 23.
That includes classes being held until Dec. 20, a winter holiday from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3, and the fall semester resuming Jan. 4 and finishing to Jan. 15.
The winter semester would begin Jan. 22 and run to April 27, reading week would be suspended and the Family Day weekend extended by one day. Students will receive two days' notice for a return to class.
Best doesn't want to publicly go into details of what will happen if classes don't resume by late next week. The college will communicate with students if this comes to pass.
He did, however, say the school year will extend into May if students can't return to class by Nov. 23, as there's no more vacation time the college can cancel.
“We sort of exhausted those opportunities,” he said.
There's been some grumbling by students who say they want a tuition refund. A lawsuit to that effect was even launched this week.
But a tuition refund isn't likely, as it presumes that students aren't going to be able to complete their studies, Best said.
“Right now our contingency plans allow for the completion of the academic year,” he said.
“Also, any decision around refunds would be a decision made as part of all 24 colleges, and the ministry would be involved. That would have to be a provincewide decision.”
Sudbury.com also reached out to Collège Boréal president Daniel Giroux on the same topic, but he wasn't available for an interview. However, the college did answer a series of emailed questions.
When asked how long the strike can go on and the fall semester still be completed, the college said these decisions are challenging without knowing the exact duration of the work stoppage.
“Should there be a 'yes' vote, the fall semester will resume once a return date is set, continue after the winter break and be extended as long as necessary to ensure that students learn what they need to learn to move onto the next semester,” said the emailed response.
It also said it's not prepared to speculate on how long a work stoppage might last, and that the college system is committed to ensuring that students complete their academic year.
The college said it will provide information about a revised school year once the results of this week's contract vote are known.
In terms of the tuition refund issue, Boréal echoes Best's response.
“The notion of a refund presumes that students will not complete their academic year,” the college said. “We fully expect that college students will be able to complete their year once this work stoppage has ended.”
