Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello I hope I find you well, my name is Pierce Colpman and I am requesting to appeal the grading of my Rosetta Stone homework for the course FREN 107 during the fall semester of 2019. At the beginning of the fall term of 2019 I was only signed up for 3 courses, and so I needed another to keep on track with my degree plan. I decided to sign up for French as I have always wanted to learn the second language of my country with a higher degree of proficiency. I signed up for French a couple days before the deadline to add courses and I went to the Queens book store to get the textbook and access code for the Rosetta Stone online homework. I had some difficulty getting access to Rosetta Stone at the beginning as their support team did not email me back as to the next steps needed to get access to the program even though I had sent them my access code. I sent an email to my TA that it attached in the supporting documents where I stated,

I am emailing in regards to accessing Rosetta Stone as I have done all the necessary steps however have not received an email back on how to finish the process that is dictated on OnQ. I am worried as I joined the course late and don't want to miss the first due date for Rosetta Stone activities.

My TA responded by emailing me back instructing me to reach out to Rosetta Stone support if It had been more than 2 business days since I sent them my access code. I did this and waited for them to respond and they did not. At this point it had been nearly a week and there was an assignment due in the coming days that I was worried I would not have access to complete on time. I sent my TA another email explaining how my situation has developed since I last reached out which is also attached in the supporting documents. This is what I sent.

Hi I have done exactly as you mentioned and I spoke to someone at Rosetta Stone, they said they would send me an email with my login details however I still have not received it and I believe there is an assignment due on the 4th of October which I am getting increasingly worried about. If there is anything else I can do please let me know I really am trying to do my best in this class and really want to work this out.

It was at this point that I realized my situation in that If I did not get access to my Rosetta Stone, that my grades in the class would suffer severely as I could not complete any of my homework and the due dates were approaching very quickly. It was the response to this email that is the key point to this entire appeal, as my TA responded to me saying:

I'm sorry you're experiencing issues. Unfortunately, we don't have access to the Rosetta Stone program as they do. You will have to follow up with them directly.

October 4th is the date for the quiz which is on OnQ. Please note that you will need to learn the material in Rosetta Stone to complete this quiz.

The deadline on the timeline for Rosetta Stone modules is simply a suggestion. These activities are not due until the end of semester.

The last statement in this email clearly states that the deadlines are simply a suggestion and that they are not due until the end of the semester. With this in mind I felt relieved and in the next coming weeks managed to fix my rosetta stone and begin completing my homework assignments. Although I started late and had to work hard to catch up, the semester went by and everything seemed fine as I finished all the homework achieving nearly 100 on every section. I felt relieved that I had managed to figure this out and finish on time, as I am applying to medical school and as such my GPA is critical to my life's plan. It was not until the end of the semester when my final grades were posted OnQ that I noticed I was assigned a grade of F(0) for 2/3 of my homework. I was very confused and concerned about this as the Rosetta Stone homework accounts for 20 of my grade in the course and having been given a 0 for 66 of it, you can appreciate that this is quite considerable. I emailed Sanita directly to try and rectify this and she told me (on December 15 after the final exam had concluded) that I failed to complete the Rosetta Stone units by the deadline on the timeline, and so I had been awarded a grade of F(0) 2 our of the 3 units. This surprised and upset me as I had been sent an email from my TA that explicitly stated that these due dates were suggestions, however my instructor was now giving me a F(0) for completing them before the end of the semester as was instructed to me. I emailed her back trying to explain what my TA had told me thinking she would understand, but she stopped responding to my emails and began ignoring them completely. I did not want to let this go and so I went to see an academic counsellor who heard my case and believed I had every right to submit an appeal and fight for what he and I believe I deserve. All I ask is that my assignments be graded and I be given the grade I deserve for the hard work I put into this course. I enjoyed my time in FREN 107 as I have always wanted to take a university level french course, but felt robbed and betrayed by my instructors as they spread false information to me which caused my grades to lower drastically, and then would not even consider my side of the story or consider grading my assignments. I hope you can see that what I want is simply fairness and nothing more than that. I put a lot of time, money and effort into this course to have my grade pulled out from underneath my feet after the semester had ended none the less. I look forward to your response and appreciate your time and consideration of my situation.
Have a great rest of your day,
Pierce C.