Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I received an email on Friday February 3rd, 2017 stating that I was on track to only complete 117 of the required 120 credits in order to graduate. When I had checked last semester on SOLUS, and at the beginning of this semester, I was shown that I was on track to complete all 120 credits. I believe that the mistake made was that I still had a 3-credit course in my shopping cart, which I was unaware factored toward the 120 needed credits.

In order to rectify this situation, I am hoping to add the course RELS 237 (Religion and Film), which will give me the required 3 credits. I was previously enrolled in RELS 237 at the beginning of the semester, but I had to drop the course because I needed to add BCHM 218 (a course that is a core requirement for the Biology program) and there was a scheduling conflict. RELS 237 has a 3-hour lecture on Fridays from 1130am-230pm, and BCHM 218 has a lecture on Fridays from 130pm-230pm, in addition to two other weekly lectures and a lab (which are not scheduling conflicts, and I will be in attendance for them).

While this would normally be an issue, the professors of BCHM 218 record and post their entire lectures online after the class, and there are no marks tied to attendance; for RELS 237, attendance is part of the final grade. I have spoken with the professors of BCHM 218 (and attained a letter which I have attached), which states that I have their permission to not be physically in class on Fridays, as long as I stay on top of the material and watch the Friday lecture sometime during the weekend. I have also spoken to the professor of RELS 237, and she has stated that she is okay with me joining the class at this point, and that we will come up with a way for me to get caught up on any missed course material. The majority of RELS 237 is watching and analyzing films, which I can do on my own time in order to catch up. The RELS 237 professor (Dr. Ellen Goldberg) is emailing her letter of approval to acs.appeals@queensu.ca. An email was also sent by William Morrow (the Undergraduate Chair of Religious Studies), which states that he supports Dr. Goldberg in allowing me to enter the course past the normal period.

I am hoping that this fairly simple situation can be rectified as quickly as possible. I am in my final year, and I have applied to post-graduate programs, which require me to graduate after the winter semester.

Thank you for your consideration,

Shawn Dhasi
10054726