STRIKE: NO END IN SIGHT
Students call for refunds
Operating on a tight budget as a single mother with two sons under the age of three, Mellie Young has been paying for child care she doesn’t need for the past five weeks out of concern she will lose her spot.
Young, who is studying office administration for the health care field at St. Clair College’s Thames Campus, is among the hundreds of thousands of Ontario college students caught in the middle of a bitter, five-week strike between the College Employer Council (representing management) and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (representing faculty).
They are seeing thousands of dollars in tuition vaporizing, lives being disrupted and an enormous workload coming their way in a compressed curriculum that will be delivered at lightning speed.
“They’re training us to be professionals, but after the strike starts they don’t even talk for two weeks,” Young said, “Where are the adults in all this? They hold us to one standard but they (two sides) act in a different way.”
The two sides have negotiated for only four days in just over four weeks.
“We’re wasting money and it’s really stressful,” Young said. “I looked at college as an investment in my future, but now that investment isn’t paying back and is even costing me extra expense.”
Essex resident Johannah DeVries, who is in the first year of Fanshawe College’s business marketing program, said living in residence costs more than $8,200 and the mandatory meal plan adds another $1,200. On top of that are DeVries’ tuition and books.
“I want some type of a refund and students should have a voice in what happens (with the rest of the semester),” she said.
Younghoon Chung, a native of South Korea, was taking English as a second language classes in preparation for entering the automotive engineering program next fall at St. Clair.
He fears the lengthy pause in his education will force him to stay beyond his visa limitations.
“I have permission to be in Canada for two or three years, but I don’t know what happens if I have to stay longer to finish school,” the 23-year-old Chung said. “I’ll have to hire a lawyer and that’s more expense for my parents.
“They’re already paying a lot for school, housing and food for me.”
Chung hasn’t considered going home yet but other international students haven’t had that luxury.
“One of my friends, she went back to Korea,” Chung said. “It’s too long and there’s no plan (to resume classes). She was tired of wasting her time and money.”
While many students are hopeful their semesters will be saved, there are also those who feel too much time has been lost.
One of those in favour of starting again in January is Breanna Jordan, who is in the registered practical nursing program at St. Clair’s Thames Campus in Chatham.
“We’re going to be nurses, what stuff can they really afford to leave out?” Jordan said. “Mistakes in the nursing profession can kill.”
Jordan said by the end of this week she’ll have missed 48 hours of her clinical hours in hospital settings. Students must have at least 80 clinical hours this semester.
“I’ve got 32 hours in the bank,” Jordan said. “How is the college going to find all this clinical time for students?
Forty-three-year-old Sean Vizard can see the finish line of his final year in the business administration-human resources program, but he is also willing to push his graduation back from April to get the full value of his education.
“I’m worried about the workload going back, but I’m more worried they’re just going to give us a dumbed-down version,” Vizard said.
“Without the necessary time are you going to take stuff out and will that cripple me somewhere when I go out to work?”
Mississauga native Aurora McClennan, who also believes students deserve at least a portion of their tuition refunded, expressed the fear teachers will try to shoehorn in a curriculum that can’t fit the remaining time frame.
“We’re all stressed over how much catch-up we’re going to have to do,” said McClennan, who is in the first year of St. Clair’s musical theatre performance program.
“Our program is already heavy. I’m concerned about keeping up.”