St. Clair College targets July for partial return of students to campus
Meanwhile, UWindsor announced a $20M budget shortfall due to COVID-19
A subset of students from St. Clair College will be returning to campus in July.
The priority is for graduating students with outstanding "hands-on" assessments or mandatory training, such as labs, to be able to complete those requirements in-person, the college stated in a press release Wednesday.
Students in the affected programs will be notified by their program coordinator with further instructions.
Though there are students enrolled in a spring semester, which began in May, the college said those courses will remain online for the time being.
The institution is also working toward getting student work placements "back on track," though that will require further coordination with community partners.
University of Windsor will remain online, likely until 2021
During the university's first virtual town hall Wednesday, president Robert Gordon spoke about how the pandemic has impacted the institution and gave updates on returning to campus.
According to Gordon, the university is forecasting a budget fallout of more than $20 million due to COVID-19.
Gordon didn't provide many details on the cause of the budget shortfall, but said it was due to challenges related to international recruitment and "other issues with the pandemic response."
Though the university will proceed with online classes into the fall semester, Gordon said they are slowly planning on a phased return to campus.
Specific details of the return, including a timeline, were not provided — but Gordon anticipates in-person classes may begin in January 2021.
Since COVID-19 began and closed post-secondary institutions across Ontario in mid-March, Gordon said the University of Windsor created 10 "return-to-campus" groups with faculty and student members.
The groups will help the university develop an approach to return to campus along with UWindsor's pandemic response team and authorities from the local health unit.
Updates from both St. Clair and UWindsor come in light of an announcement made by Ontario's Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano on Wednesday that allows a "limited" return to campus for students in certain industries to complete in-person requirements.
"It's critical that we allow students to complete their studies and graduate so they can join the workforce in high-demand, frontline roles and help put the province back on the path to prosperity," Romano said in a press release.
This includes students in essential, frontline, and high labour market demand areas like nursing, personal support workers and engineering.