Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Monday, February 12, 2018

To the Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Haley Menard, I am a fourth-year Fine Arts student. I am writing to appeal to request credit standing in a course, because of extenuating circumstances. The course in question is ARTF 447 (Fall 2017), for which my professor, Kathleen Sellars, gave me a C-.
My professor was emotionally abusive towards myself and the other students in my class. Since the third week of class, I received condescending behaviour that impacted my ability to work effectively in our studio space, and which impacted my mental health. She repeatedly told me to drop out and threatened that she would fail me. In the fall term, our class launched a complaint against her behaviour with the Office of the Associate Deans. I signed forms for academic consideration with Associate Dean Bénard, for which we received an extension for our thesis project. That documentation contains some of the details of the circumstances as well as an attached form with details on the toll it took on my mental health. The reason for the extension was a concern that we felt unsafe doing our work in the studio because of the presence of our professor. I completed my project for the end of the extension, but was very concerned that she would be biased when grading my work. These extenuating circumstances impacted my ability to work effectively, my safety, and my health.
This semester (Winter 2018), I switched advisors and studio spaces to avoid the issues that happened last semester. I am a good student, so I know that under normal academic circumstances I will succeed. The grade I received from Professor Sellars could impact my ablity to go on to further education, seeing as it is worth 9 credits and is the main class component of my major. I am requesting to have credit standing so that I can put the events that happened in the fall semester in the past.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Haley Menard