Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter:
Hello,

My name is Arianna Shokour, and I am a student at Queen’s University. I am (or was, as I am graduating tomorrow, June 21st, 2023) a Global Development (DEVS) major and a Politics (POLS) minor.

I am writing this letter to request that the courses I took in the winter semester be dropped (DR), as I experienced extenuating circumstances that caused complications that impacted my ability to complete necessary course work and a final exam, and have damaged my transcript. On March 16th, 2023, I sustained a concussion as a result of a fall. On the 17th of March, 2023, my family physician provided me with a doctors note confirming this injury, and requested consideration for at least a week and stated that I would need to be re-evaluated. On April 13th, 2023, my doctor provided me with another note confirming that I was still experiencing post-concussive symptoms that impacted my ability to complete my work, and that I could increase my course load slowly, but needed a few more weeks to heal. I filed for academic consideration and requested accommodations from the day of the injury sustained (March 16th, 2023) until the 30th of April. I was given until the 21st of April, and I reached out to my professors. Some of my professors allowed me to submit assignments, although I struggled to complete them due to my symptoms, and was unable to produce my best work. other professors gave me leniency in terms of submitting assignments, however, due to OnQ pages closing, and the slow speed at which I was able to complete assignments, I was unable to access assignments and professors did not email me back with the things that I needed to complete, despite numerous attempts on my part to reach out, which caused my grades to suffer. I also had an exam on April 25th for my EMPR 270 course, and I had spoken to the professor about writing at a later date, but due to an uncertain May schedule on my part, I decided to attempt to write the exam while experiencing concussive symptoms. In the exam hall, I began to cry because my symptoms were so severe that I could not even read the tiny words on the exam sheet, nor could I recall things that I would have been able to pre-concussion.

Although my concussion was sustained further into the semester, the bulk of my grades were dependent on the end of term assignments, which I struggled to complete due to my post-concussive symptoms, and I had a difficult time getting ahold of some professors. One of my professors grew impatient with how long it was taking me to complete assignments, and would not respond to me when I requested that they send me the assignment instructions for things I needed to complete, but could not due to not having access to the OnQ page.

As a daughter of immigrant parents, one of whom never attended post secondary school, it is important to me that I have a good transcript, as I worked hard to keep my grades up, and I hope to get in to law school for September of 2024. My degree (BAH) was technically obtained in the spring of 2022, however, I delayed my graduation by a year, and decided to take courses to complete the Global Action Certificate at Queen’s. Due to the concussion that I suffered, some of my grades are either incomplete (IN), or less than a passing grade, and I will not be receiving my certificate. As such, I would like to request to drop all of my winter semester courses from 2023.