Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Good afternoon Dr. Jenn Stephenson,

My name is Matthew Hedden and I am currently a third year student in the ArtSci faculty completing my Biology degree. I am writing to you today to appeal for a credit standing for one of my courses from the Fall 2020 semester. The course I am appealing for is is Biology 339, Animal Physiology.

The reason I am appealing for a Credit standing or pass/fail for the Bio339 course is due to an unfortunate circumstance that occurred to me. On November 26th , my house was broken into and my laptop was stolen, which had all my notes and work from the semester on it. Immediately after I filed a police report and got in contact with the Academic Considerations, who kindly gave me an initial consideration for 3 days. After my laptop was stolen I was left with no computer so my parents decided it would be best to fly me home (I live in Manitoba) the following week and complete my courses using our home desktop computer. I was kindly given additional consideration until December 4th, which was the date I got home and had access to a computer. For my consideration I provided the police report I submitted as well as proof of flight change. I appreciated this, as this was the most stressful period I have ever gone through at Queens¿¿s. Professors in 3 of my courses were extremely considerate and kind to give me extra time to complete assignments and quizzes that were due during that week or just exempting me from assignments after notification from the academic considerations. However, in Bio339 I emailed my professor to try and arrange a date to complete a number of quizzes that were due during that week yet he never answered and I never got a chance to complete a number of assignments that has lowered my grade considerably for that one course.

I cannot fully blame my professor for the circumstance I have found myself in. I should have emailed him earlier on and continued to email him and take some accountability to make sure that I receive time to complete the past due quizzes, surveys, assignments, etc. With exams looming in the coming weeks I buried myself in trying to remake notes for all my classes, and I found myself not checking my emails regularly to see if he had responded. I was extremely focused on my first two exams, which were much earlier in December compared to my biology 339 exam and found myself not planning ahead for that course as much as I should have. In the future I plan to take more charge and be on top of emails if I find myself in a position like this to make sure I can complete every assignment to deserve the best grade I can get. Unfortunately for this course I ended up with a D-, which is not my best work and does not reflect me as a student looking at my other grades from this semester. I hope one day to write my MCAT and apply for med school and I know this D- would negatively impact that process greatly, which is why I am appealing for a pass fail.

Thank you so much for your time, I hope you had a safe and happy time during your holidays.

Matthew Hedden
Student number: 202102185