Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 7334
Submitted: January 28, 2021 at 1:42:27 PM
First Name: Michael
Last Name: Gibbard-McCall
Student Number: 20109424
Email: michaelgm03@gmail.com
Degree Program: BAH
Plan: ECON
Level of Study: 3
Appeal Category Detail: Appeal a letter of academic breach and sanction.
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: I am appealing various things below. Firstly, I am appealing to extend the 21 day deadline to 22 days due to poor mental health as a result of various things. Secondly, I am appealing the decision by my professor and thirdly the sanctions he choose.
Firstly, I was handed an academic integrity departure slip on January 6, 2020. I was given 21 days to appeal however due to poor mental state due to various things I was only able to appeal today, 22 days after the notice.
I have struggled mentally throughout this pandemic in many ways. Firstly, with stress from school work my body and mind have been destroyed as I tried to maintain my high grades with little interaction between professors and TA's. I managed this through working harder than I have in any previous year and finish successfully in my work. When I was given notice I broke integrity, which I didn't, I was mentally broken. This occurred on the 28th, and I struggled to even get an appeal in to my professor on time, as I felt like the system had betrayed me. I worked so hard all year only to be accused of cheating on the exam and threatened with a zero. After my initial appeal, and I saw I was given a zero, I broke down further. Seeing the impact it had on my GPA and mark, felt like I was given the short end of the stick forever, and that one false accusation would ruin my future. I lost 2 job interview as my GPA fell below the required 3.7 both companies had and I lost motivation for work and to even get this appeal off. I have battled back mentally this last week, reaching out to friends I'd lost contact with through the pandemic and talking to grads about how to cope with lower GPA's in the current job market due to covid. Hearing from others and expressing my concerns and just having the ability to talk has helped me recover to an extent and get this appeal in. During my meeting with my professor he told me he showed it to other professors as well and they said my appeal was a lost cause, which made me lose all hope. I realized to stay happy I have to stick to my morals and guns always and thus an appealing anyway. Hopefully due to these reasons I will be allowed to appeal a day late.
I am appealing my professor's, Brian Ling's, decision to deem my actions during the final exam of Stat 268 as a breach in academic integrity. He deemed the following The answers are similar to those on Chegg, including some unnecessary steps and change of notation. It is highly unlikely to be a coincidence. I firmly believe this was a coincidence and expressed my reasoning in a PDF appeal to him on Jan 4th (it is 4 pages long and thus can't be written here). It argued my case in 3 ways, logistically, my story and logically. Logistically I don't have Chegg and never have. My story, I expressed how I came to conclusions and what were my reasons for certain actions. Logically, I had a 3.74 GPA and a 90+ entering this course, what reason was there for me to risk academic integrity after all the work I had put in. More so, the exam was worth 40 of my mark, these 2 questions represented less than 20 of the exam, and I entered with approximately a 94, it was and never would be worth the risk.
In addition, to the PDF I had the opportunity to talk with my professor about the incident and could not convince him differently. I found the material within my notes, the specific breach was about a specific question which was a proof of sorts. I had in my notes a copy of the same proof in a general state, and used this to apply it the the specific question. I was informed this proof wasn't in the OnQ notes. During my online school I have disconnected from learning from professors as I only learn from their notes. This means I do lots of outside research as I love math, and did for this course as well. I'm a strong student, so I talk strong notes and have over 20pages of handwritten notes, much of which is personal research in regards to topic, I used this research to succeed on the assignments. It just happened that the research I had within my notes, which was derived from online sources, was used by someone to answer a question in a similar format to what I did.
It is a coincidence and I am adamant I did not breach any academic integrity as I took my own notes to answer a question on an open-book exam. It just happened to be similar to that of one found online and cost me my grade, my academic integrity history and my mental academic state as I lost faith in the system.
Secondly, if this coincidence proves to be too much to overturn, as can be the case in life. Despite not breaking integrity, if I am deemed to, I believe the sanctions too great. As mentioned above the question at fault was less than 20, of a 40 exam in a course I entered with a 94. I don't believe it is fair for me to get a zero on the exam, for an act I didn't do. Looking at it on a greater scale, this zero, brings my mark from A+ to a D, which in turns destroys my GPA I worked hard for during my other courses. This feels very unfair and punishes me far too greatly for an act I didn't do, and is just a coincidence.
I hope my appeal is accepted and I have the chance to argue my case further. In addition, I would like to find a way to get my previous appeal to the Associate Dean, as it goes further into my actions and story.
Firstly, I was handed an academic integrity departure slip on January 6, 2020. I was given 21 days to appeal however due to poor mental state due to various things I was only able to appeal today, 22 days after the notice.
I have struggled mentally throughout this pandemic in many ways. Firstly, with stress from school work my body and mind have been destroyed as I tried to maintain my high grades with little interaction between professors and TA's. I managed this through working harder than I have in any previous year and finish successfully in my work. When I was given notice I broke integrity, which I didn't, I was mentally broken. This occurred on the 28th, and I struggled to even get an appeal in to my professor on time, as I felt like the system had betrayed me. I worked so hard all year only to be accused of cheating on the exam and threatened with a zero. After my initial appeal, and I saw I was given a zero, I broke down further. Seeing the impact it had on my GPA and mark, felt like I was given the short end of the stick forever, and that one false accusation would ruin my future. I lost 2 job interview as my GPA fell below the required 3.7 both companies had and I lost motivation for work and to even get this appeal off. I have battled back mentally this last week, reaching out to friends I'd lost contact with through the pandemic and talking to grads about how to cope with lower GPA's in the current job market due to covid. Hearing from others and expressing my concerns and just having the ability to talk has helped me recover to an extent and get this appeal in. During my meeting with my professor he told me he showed it to other professors as well and they said my appeal was a lost cause, which made me lose all hope. I realized to stay happy I have to stick to my morals and guns always and thus an appealing anyway. Hopefully due to these reasons I will be allowed to appeal a day late.
I am appealing my professor's, Brian Ling's, decision to deem my actions during the final exam of Stat 268 as a breach in academic integrity. He deemed the following The answers are similar to those on Chegg, including some unnecessary steps and change of notation. It is highly unlikely to be a coincidence. I firmly believe this was a coincidence and expressed my reasoning in a PDF appeal to him on Jan 4th (it is 4 pages long and thus can't be written here). It argued my case in 3 ways, logistically, my story and logically. Logistically I don't have Chegg and never have. My story, I expressed how I came to conclusions and what were my reasons for certain actions. Logically, I had a 3.74 GPA and a 90+ entering this course, what reason was there for me to risk academic integrity after all the work I had put in. More so, the exam was worth 40 of my mark, these 2 questions represented less than 20 of the exam, and I entered with approximately a 94, it was and never would be worth the risk.
In addition, to the PDF I had the opportunity to talk with my professor about the incident and could not convince him differently. I found the material within my notes, the specific breach was about a specific question which was a proof of sorts. I had in my notes a copy of the same proof in a general state, and used this to apply it the the specific question. I was informed this proof wasn't in the OnQ notes. During my online school I have disconnected from learning from professors as I only learn from their notes. This means I do lots of outside research as I love math, and did for this course as well. I'm a strong student, so I talk strong notes and have over 20pages of handwritten notes, much of which is personal research in regards to topic, I used this research to succeed on the assignments. It just happened that the research I had within my notes, which was derived from online sources, was used by someone to answer a question in a similar format to what I did.
It is a coincidence and I am adamant I did not breach any academic integrity as I took my own notes to answer a question on an open-book exam. It just happened to be similar to that of one found online and cost me my grade, my academic integrity history and my mental academic state as I lost faith in the system.
Secondly, if this coincidence proves to be too much to overturn, as can be the case in life. Despite not breaking integrity, if I am deemed to, I believe the sanctions too great. As mentioned above the question at fault was less than 20, of a 40 exam in a course I entered with a 94. I don't believe it is fair for me to get a zero on the exam, for an act I didn't do. Looking at it on a greater scale, this zero, brings my mark from A+ to a D, which in turns destroys my GPA I worked hard for during my other courses. This feels very unfair and punishes me far too greatly for an act I didn't do, and is just a coincidence.
I hope my appeal is accepted and I have the chance to argue my case further. In addition, I would like to find a way to get my previous appeal to the Associate Dean, as it goes further into my actions and story.
Academic Plan
Academic Plan: Moving forward the thing I have to work on most is my mental health. This pandemic has placed far too much weight and stress from school on my back as other activities and events in my life have been shut down. Losing my ability to talk to friends and express my issues raised my stress levels throughout the semester. In addition, not having in class hours made my schedule unpredictable which hurt my mental health and work. I had to work harder than ever before, making even better notes and further research. When I finished exams I had a great stress off my back only to have it hit me even harder throwing me into a dark whole.
This semester I've derived multiple plans to lower my overall stress moving forward to allow me to deal with such an incident and overall school moving forward. Firstly, I build a schedule this morning for office hours, TA tutorials and any live lesson. I plan to attend almost all of them to build a schedule for myself. I have also created time slots to do work, read lectures and send emails to TA's to keep up to date. I hope by making a schedule I can recreate the work from first and second year to lower my stress and improve mental conditions.
Secondly, I have reached out to friends I had lost contact with due to the pandemic. By expressing my thoughts and beginning to socialize again I lower the impact school has in my life as I gain momentum in other areas once more.
Thirdly, I have looked at things on a larger scale again. I viewed this sanction as something that would ruin my life as my GPA fell .2 points, however I need to look bigger picture once more. I have begun to follow news outside of my life and catch up with things I've missed. I've always started to reach out to connections I know struggled at school and in job hunts to help gain perspective on my situation. Through doing this I will be able to cope with larger incidents and even smaller incidents once more.
I hope all of these approaches and actions will allow me to move forward in a positive way and learn from my mental depression I recently faced.
Lastly, I have taught myself two very important things during this process. Even while writing this appeal I have grown increasingly happy as I am sticking to who I am. I have to live life always staying true to my colours and never letting people change me for the worse. I slacked there and almost let doubt not make me write this appeal, but I will never be happy if I don't continue to be me and express my thoughts and do what I feel is right. I hope by appealing my sanctions and continuing to live life how I see right, I will lift stress and other weight off my back to succeed.
This semester I've derived multiple plans to lower my overall stress moving forward to allow me to deal with such an incident and overall school moving forward. Firstly, I build a schedule this morning for office hours, TA tutorials and any live lesson. I plan to attend almost all of them to build a schedule for myself. I have also created time slots to do work, read lectures and send emails to TA's to keep up to date. I hope by making a schedule I can recreate the work from first and second year to lower my stress and improve mental conditions.
Secondly, I have reached out to friends I had lost contact with due to the pandemic. By expressing my thoughts and beginning to socialize again I lower the impact school has in my life as I gain momentum in other areas once more.
Thirdly, I have looked at things on a larger scale again. I viewed this sanction as something that would ruin my life as my GPA fell .2 points, however I need to look bigger picture once more. I have begun to follow news outside of my life and catch up with things I've missed. I've always started to reach out to connections I know struggled at school and in job hunts to help gain perspective on my situation. Through doing this I will be able to cope with larger incidents and even smaller incidents once more.
I hope all of these approaches and actions will allow me to move forward in a positive way and learn from my mental depression I recently faced.
Lastly, I have taught myself two very important things during this process. Even while writing this appeal I have grown increasingly happy as I am sticking to who I am. I have to live life always staying true to my colours and never letting people change me for the worse. I slacked there and almost let doubt not make me write this appeal, but I will never be happy if I don't continue to be me and express my thoughts and do what I feel is right. I hope by appealing my sanctions and continuing to live life how I see right, I will lift stress and other weight off my back to succeed.
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: No Documentation, as I did not seek medical attention currently besides talking to personal friend who is trained professional.
Document: Academic Appeal Documents.pdf
Documentation Detail: When I can go to Kingston (lockdown restriction), I will provide note scans as well if needed.
History
Originally submitted January 28, 2021 at 1:42:27 PM.
| Field | Reference | Old Value | New Value | Note | User | Date/Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| status | N/A | Received | Withdrawn | Kerri Andrews | 2021-01-28 1:45:59 PM |