York University was buzzing Thursday as students returned to campus and scrambled to get a head start before being besieged with school work when classes restart Monday.
Pickets were down, buses were back on campus and the food court near the students’ centre — near-deserted these past few weeks — was packed with dozens of anxious undergraduates hunched over their laptops reading or taking notes.
“It doesn’t look like a ghost town any longer,” said Nicole Abbaticchio, a third-year communications student. “Everyone is excited and eager to get back. This has been a waste of time — I felt as if I was being held back from progressing. Now we’ll be cramming — so much to do and so little time.”
The strike shut down the campus on Nov. 6 when 3,340 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants walked off the job. The Ontario legislature passed back-to-work legislation Thursday, ending the three-month strike.
It was the longest-ever strike at an English-speaking university in Canada and marks the third time in 12 years that labour strife forced York to extend classes into summer.
Students were glad to be back at school but terrified of being swamped with school work.
“We will probably be packing two months (work) into two weeks,” said Lucas Dixon, a first-year English student, in the food court.
First-year students Karla Bonilla and Stefani Pletsch were also catching up with school work.
Bonilla, an international studies student, said she had been e-mailing her professors so she could get a head start and know what to expect for the weeks to come.
“I don’t have any assignments but I’m doing a lot of reading and taking notes,” she said. “Just looking at the course outlines makes my head swim.”
