With one last semester, Brockville, Ont. student says college should keep classes online

BROCKVILLE, ONT. -

As colleges and universities plan to welcome back in-person learning, some students finishing their last semesters say it is just not necessary, and they should be able to finish their course online.

St. Lawrence college student Kellie Gauthier, says heading back to campus just doesn't make sense for her class.

"I think that they should just allow us to do the next two and a half months at home," Gauthier said outside the Brockville campus on Tuesday.

Gauthier is in her final year of the mental wellness and addiction program and has been completing the course online.

Come January, the college is planning to return to in-person learning, aiming to have 80 per cent of its programs taught on campus.

But students in her class are enrolled and studying from across the country.

"We have students that are in Kingston, Cornwall, out west; they've been doing online and to try and find an apartment now is just absurd," Gauthier said.

Some students in her program never moved to the area when the course went online in fall of 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, staying in their hometown, able to continue work or take care of sick family members.

She says with the announcement of in-person learning, discussions have arisen about some students not even finishing the program.

"Why should they have to give up their education for two and a half months?" Gauthier said. "We've been online and accommodating since day one."

St. Lawrence college president and CEO Glenn Vollebregt says communication was sent out months in advance about the return to in-person learning at all three college facilities along the seaway.

"The information that we communicated, it was out there in the summer, it was out there in the fall, and it was communicated again at the beginning of November," Vollebregt said.

"We did this in early November to allow students over a couple of months to make arrangements and so forth. We work with our community groups in all three of our communities to help ensure that our students have housing, to help ensure our students are supported," he added.

Vollebregt says any student that cannot make the transition to on campus learning work should reach out.

"Absolutely we're going to work with them. Our goal is to help our students get across the finish line. I would encourage those students to reach out to their faculty, reach out to their program coordinator and let's talk about the situation and how we can help them be successful," he said.

"I can tell you the response has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of having more face to face time on campus but obviously for some it's not what they prefer. We're trying to work through that with all of our students in all of our programs to hit that fine balance between face to face and ensuring that they have flexible arrangements."

Gauthier said students surveyed in her class would rather keep the course online, and although she says she can make the transition work come January, others cannot.

"To travel here, it's just not worth it," said Gauthier. "I don't think the dean is taking that into consideration at this time. We're only asking for two and a half months to be left online and we're in a 40-hour placement come March. When we are looking at such a short period of the time, it's really not worth it for all of us to have to rearrange our life schedules to finish off our education."

"it's our goal that pretty much every student should have that opportunity to have some experience on campus and some of that applied experiential learning that colleges are so well known for," added Vollebregt.