Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: May 7, 2021

Associate Dean (Academic)
Faculty of Arts & Science
Queen¿¿s University Kingston

Re: Appeal Level 1: Callum McCormack 20184200

Dear Dean Stephenson,

I am appealing to extend the incomplete (IN) period on my Winter term ECON 250 Statistics
course to allow for me to rewrite the exam in the fall term 2021 as approved by my Professor Gregor Smith.

I am appealing, as well, for my Winter term ECON222 Macroeconomics D- grade to be converted to Credit standing.

My ECON 250 Professor, Gregor Smith, has offered an exam in the Fall 2021 exam period. He understands I will require time to prepare and could not be ready by an alternative accommodation window later this month. I have worked hard in his course, with good results on the assignments but did not anticipate how severely my performance would be affected in the exam conditions. After four hours (3 hours plus an accommodation of 1 hour), I timed out as my manual abilities are extremely limited.

The specific impact on this course was due to the shift from the use of spreadsheets for problem solving in course work to manual inputs required by the exam format. At the time of exam writing, the attempt at manual entries triggered neurological challenges with tics and fine motor skills issues. As a result, I timed out of the test without significantly completing the work legibly or well.

I immediately reported my issues to Professor Smith, and indicated that I had support from my specialist in terms of asking for additional consideration. In Winter term, a short-term accommodation was added to my original accommodation based on increasing impact of my condition on some types of performance. The request indicates the onset of severe symptoms in second term that are particular to some types of activities like the Stats exam format.

My ECON 222 grade reflects completed work, with some consideration for both my regular and the short term accommodation requests by my Doctor in Winter. Similar to ECON 250, my Professor, Mike Kennedy, has witnessed me struggle with deadlines in creating written submissions in a confident or timely way for assignments. As background, the course allows for group work but my condition makes me less welcome in group work as it is distracting to the group and my hand written work is not on par with theirs. There are four assignments in ECON 222 worth 40 of the mark. With each one, I have panicked and timed out while trying to complete it by myself. For reasons outlined in the additional accommodation letter I could not make myself turn in the substandard work. Professor Kennedy has allowed for these challenges and passed me in the Course but the grade is D- which will factor into my GPA and my opportunities for an BAH. If possible, and for reasons outlined here, I would ask that this be shown as a Credit Standing.

As for my other courses in Winter term, Astronomy and Social Psychology were, for the most part done on OnQ without the demands of the manual calculations or submissions, and I have received a B- in both.

This summer, I will work with my doctor and an academic coach to improve my ability to function under pressure with manual challenges. I am taking Math 121 in summer term and will be more aware of making time for formatting; improving at manual tasks.

My goal is to pursue a degree in Economics. I had tried some other disciplines that required group work, video presentations, and even computer coding that had to be done in the classroom and discovered my condition was disruptive to learning and doing these programs.

Please allow this appeal so I may continue in Economics, possibly as a major or medial (with Psychology). My interest is in Behavioural Economics which is a combination of both.

1. As per Professor Smith, finish ECON 250 by writing the exam with the Fall term class
2. Converting the ECON 222 D- to Credit Standing.

There is some urgency with this request as I have just received today an automatic notice regarding an Examity appointment in May for ECON 250 for which I am unprepared.

Thank you for your timely consideration of my appeal.
Sincerely,

Callum McCormack
415 Sackville Street
Toronto, ON M4X1S8
416-358-0917
19cakr@queensu.ca