A province-wide protest about the Ontario college strike failed to materialize at St. Clair College.
Multiple reports indicated that some of Ontario's colleges would stage a walkout, but no such protest took place at St. Clair. It was expected to take place at noon on Friday, which was the originally-scheduled last day of the fall semester before the strike.
The walkout was proposed by a group called Ontario Students United, which posted information on its Facebook page.
It was business as usual at St. Clair's Windsor and Chatham campuses Friday. BlackburnNewsWindsor.com stopped by the Student Representative Council office and was told that the group was not sanctioning any staged walkout.
Thousands of faculty at all Ontario colleges walked off the job October 16 over wages, job security and input into curriculum. The strike cancelled classes for five weeks and disrupted the fall semester. Students returned to the classroom on November 21 after back-to-work legislation was passed, sending faculty back to work.
St. Clair College offered students a chance to withdraw from their programs for the fall semester and receive a full tuition refund. Over 1,200 students took up that offer, costing the school about $3.6-million in revenue.
The college is compensating for the lost time by extending classes until next Friday, December 22, cutting the winter holiday break from three weeks to one, and delaying the start of the winter 2018 term.