UNB students make case for strike compensation

The student council at University of New Brunswick Saint John plans to ask the university to compensate students for costs associated with last month's strike.

Classes resume at UNB today, in advance of a ratification vote by about 550 full-time professors and librarians on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The university has cancelled its March break and is extending the school year until April 17 to make up for time lost in the three-week strike.

​UNBSJ student council president Ashley MacKosky says some students still feel they've been shortchanged by the strike and deserve compensation.

He's hoping to present the council's case to the university's board of governors this week.

"So there is going to be some asked for rebate on tuition because students expected a January to April semester, not a February to April," said MacKosky.

"In terms of students that maybe are going to cancel their trips, we are going to work on some form of reimbursement application form that they can do to reimburse students for those trips that have to be cancelled and there are fees or shifted fees."

MacKosky says the student council also wants the university to see that no tests are scheduled during what was to be the March Break, and that assignments aren't due that week.

Cole Bulger from the Halifax area isn't pleased he won't be able to head home in March, but thinks it's a necessary sacrifice.

"It's probably for the best just for the quality of education," said Bulger, a chemical engineering student at UNB in Fredericton. "I'd rather be able to get those extra days in to be still be prepared for my exams.

"But at the same time, it does kind of suck for a lot of people."

Bulger said he has friends who have already booked trips during the March Break period and intend to take them regardless of the break being cancelled.

Computer science student Alex Battah doesn't object to the March Break cancellation.

"It's kind of inconvenient for people that have booked plans, but if it means we have a better semester in terms of productivity, I think it's better that way."

Some programs, like the masters of business administration program at UNBSJ, never had a Reading Week scheduled in March. MBA student Nikhil Karpe wonders how his classes will be made up.

"We have already lost three weeks in the strike. We had eight weeks of this module, but out of that, three weeks is already gone," he said. "So I don't know how they're going to fit eight weeks into five weeks."

Karpe says he's starting to think about compensation for the time he has lost.

"If the course is extended beyond the 24th of October, then we'll have to pay extra for the rentals and the regular groceries and stuff," he said. "So during that time, if it gets extended, we would be expecting some sort of rebate or something."