TUITION REFUND UNLIKELY

Caper Times reached out to Dr. Rod Nicholls, a member of the CBU bargaining team after a statement made by him on CBC news stirred confusion among the student community. CBC News quoted Dr. Nicholls stating that tuition refunds are unlikely, which resulted in Caper Times receiving multiple queries to look further into the matter and provide clarity. CT requested Rod to clarify whether he meant there wouldn’t be any monetary compensation for the students or was it just about tuition fund reimbursements. We were informed that tuition refunds are not to be expected and students should not plan in the hope of receiving them. However, we were told that CBU plan on compensating the students for their lost time with money accumulated from the salary not paid to the CBUFA faculty who are on strike. The CBU Students’ Union will be playing a key role in determining the distribution of this amount, as per the information provided to us.

With the improbability of a tuition refund, Caper Times then contacted the Students’ Union executives, who responded to our queries. Peter Ade-Oyedijo, the Executive Vice President of the Union took it upon himself to answer the questions we had for them. We were told that the CBUSU executives were able to secure two in-person meetings with Gordon MacInnis, VP of Finance and Operations, and had discussed concerns associated with the tuition and time lost by students because of the strike. The SU executives received confirmation regarding the compensation for students from the accumulated salary of the faculty on strike. Caper Times mentioned that there are students whose entire semester is paused due to the labor action and the compensation might be inadequate compared to what the students are losing in time and experience if it follows a similar pattern to that of other Canadian University strikes and the reimbursement students received for that. Peter informed us that SU has prioritized paying the students back for the time they have lost, however, he believes that if the strike persists, they might advocate for tuition refunds. Peter further stated that the Union is trying to get clarification on tuition deadlines and would advocate to make everyone eligible to receive the compensation.

REFERENCES

Email communication with Dr. Rod Nicholls and Ashin Wilfy (Caper Times).

Email communication with Peter Ade-Oyedijo and Ashin Wilfy (Caper Times).

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