Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am writing an appeal to drop BIOL 403 (Winter 2016) past the financial drop deadline, and to add PHAR 450 (Winter 2016) in its place.

Dr. Laurent Seroude, the instructor for BIOL 403, presents a hostile learning environment and has been unwilling to clearly answer questions. On Monday, January 18, 2016 I attended the BIOL 403 tutorial from 1:30pm to 2:30pm and the lab scheduled from 2:30pm to 5:30pm, which most students had to stay at until 6:10pm. Dr. Seroude repeatedly targeted me and my lab partner with condescending remarks, and he refused to provide clear guidance when we were unsure of the lab procedure. When we had specific questions to clarify the experiment¿¿s procedure, he raised his voice and told us that we had clearly not prepared for the lab session, were not listening during his presentation, and ¿¿don¿¿t know what you¿¿re doing,¿ all of which was untrue. Over the weekend, I prepared notes on the experiment and its principles for about three hours and took notes during his presentation, yet when I had questions Dr. Seroude was unwilling to answer them without humiliating me and my lab partner. When we prepared two dilutions of a solution early in the experiment, he approached our lab bench, took our solutions, and threw them in the garbage. An hour later we were required to remake the solutions. When we were having issues with our instrument, he condescendingly told me that I had inserted our sample in the wrong way, yet ten minutes previous to this, I had clarified the proper orientation of the sample with our teaching assistant. Dr. Seroude took out the sample and falsely claimed that before he took it out, it was oriented in the wrong direction and refused to accept that he had made a mistake. While the entire lab session was humiliating and insulting, I remained calm so that I would be able to finish the experiment while being polite and respectful despite Dr. Seroude¿¿s hostile behavior. Another example of his questionable behavior happened a week before this. Dr. Seroude had each student answer dilution problems on the chalkboard and when a student was unsure how to do the question, Dr. Seroude waited five minutes, without providing any guidance on the question whatsoever, before asking the class to vote if the student would be allowed to be provided with another question. This is a humiliating situation for the student and an uncomfortable situation for students to make such a decision for a peer.

Given these experiences, the environment presented by Dr. Seroude is not conducive to successful learning, and I do not believe it is fair to be treated with such disrespect. I am not able to learn in an environment in which I am ridiculed in front of my classmates and am not comfortable asking questions without an aggressive response. Because I believe that Dr. Seroude¿¿s behavior will significantly affect my academic performance and I felt that his comments were personally insulting, I am appealing to drop this course and am appealing to have the request backdated to Friday, January 15 so that I will not have to pay the course fee. BIOL 403 is held once a week, and had this situation occurred on or before the financial add/drop deadline, I would have immediately dropped the course. The circumstances of a hostile learning environment and an unsupportive professor are beyond my control.