Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of Studies,

My name is Patris Alves, I am currently enrolled in my 4th year as an undergraduate biology student, and I am scheduled to graduate in 2018. I am writing to you to formally appeal to add the Biology 540 Research Mentorship (Fall and Winter) class to my curriculum after the add/drop date.

The nature of this course is very different in comparison to other courses offered at Queen¿¿s. The evaluations as well as the lab work that are required, are left to the discretion of the Professors that I have chosen to work with. In addition, there are no midterms or tests throughout the course and this is an important element for me in terms of managing my overall course load. What follows is an outline of the steps that I have taken to date in order to try and add Biology 540 Research Mentorship to my curriculum.

1. I was fortunate enough to receive a spot in Professor Pare¿¿s visual information and processing laboratory in the Center for Neuroscience at Queen¿¿s, which was confirmed with an email he sent me on July 17, 2017.

2. I was then in contact with Professor Pare throughout the summer and had scheduled a meeting with him a few days prior to the start of the 2017-2018 school year in order to discuss the research project.

3. After meeting with him, I sent Professor Pare a final email on September 14th, a copy of which is attached by Kerri Andrews, explaining that we needed to fill out the Biology course form in order to be submitted to the Biology department for approval.

4. After not receiving a response, I stopped by Professor Pare's office many times but he was not there.

5. I then sent another email to Professor Pare on September 25th a copy of which is attached by Kerri Andrews, to which he finally responded so that I could meet with him.

6. After meeting with Professor Pare, I then had to obtain the signature of Professor Virginia Walker (my Biology supervisor) before I could hand in the form to the Head of Biology (Julie French) to be approved.

7. I then had to wait for another week before the form was approved as I was told that the professor who was responsible for signing off on the form was very busy with lectures and did not have time to read over the forms until a week after I handed them in. As such, there was nothing that I could have done to advance the processing of the form besides wait for the form to be approved since the course cannot be added by a student on Solus.

In addition to the above, there is no due date for the addition of the Biology 540 course on the Department of Biology website, instead it explains that: Registration is subject to availability of a supervisor and approval by the Undergraduate Chair in Biology.

I believe that I have been very diligent throughout this whole process and was in contact with both relevant Professors prior to the beginning of this school year. I received approval from Professor Walker as my Head Supervisor on April of 2017 and received approval for a spot in Professor Pare¿¿s lab on July 17th 2017. I recognize that Professors have many demands on their time in preparation for the school year, but I respectfully submit that the response time of Professors is out of my control. In light of the fact that I took all the necessary steps to complete the registration process in a timely and compliant manner I hereby request that I be allowed to add this course to my curriculum after the add/drop date.