Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: August 24, 2022


Jessie Duhaime
Student ID 20315113

And

Shantal Johnson
Student ID 20315087

Final Grade Reconsideration for ASTR 101 Astronomy l: The Solar System Fall 2021
Course Instructor: Professor David Hanes

Dear Faculty of Arts and Science,

Shantal and I are both 2nd year online students at Queen??s University. We are writing to appeal the final grade received for ASTR 101-Astronomy l: The Solar System. We believe that our overall participation and grades from labs and quizzes should have yielded a higher grade than the assigned F letter grade.
Shantal and I do not meet the criteria to appeal our final grade due to an extenuating circumstance; therefore, we are submitting this written appeal to have our final grade from ASTR 101 reconsidered.
The course evaluation consisted of five virtual labs and five quizzes, each contributing 25% to our final grade and two forum discussions contributing 10% to the final grade. Shantal and I received grades on each assignment indicating excellent to exceptional performance that meet the highest standards. We proved to have demonstrated that we understood the material and could apply it within our assigned tasks as per the Academic Regulations Section 10.1.1 - Long Descriptors. We did not receive any indicators leading up to the exam that we had any reason to drop the course. We often received our grade and feedback 15 to 17 days after the due date, which did not seem like other classes we participated in simultaneously. Under Assessments and Activities Description, the syllabus outlines that the quizzes are designed to help you practice concepts learned within the course. These quizzes were more like tests, consisting of 50 multiple choice questions covering material from 1-3 modules (sometimes 1-2). There were live drop-in sessions which Shantal attended and participated in through interactive dialogue. This is not the typical behaviour of a failing student.
Shantal and I have contacted Professor David Hanes separately via email to discuss our final grades. He did not seem at all interested in reconsidering and instead came off very hostile. We then met with several members of the faculty on separate occasions to discuss our options, including Academic Advisor Deborah Leach, Associate Professor and Head Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy Robert Knobel, President of ASUS Yara Hussein, Ombuds Office Lavonne Hood and Kathryn Morrissey, and finally via email with Haley Everson. Robert Knobel shared his concern about the 33% of students who also failed the deferred exam.
We would greatly appreciate it if this matter received attention from someone other than Professor Hanes. As mentioned, we have not had a pleasant experience communicating with him and believe his professional background may contribute to his biased opinion.
Please refer to the attached syllabus, more specifically, the course description section as well as the requirement to pass the exam to pass the course. We knew this was a requirement at the start of the course. The description seems a bit deceptive, however. We chose this class as an elective as it looked fun and the course description detailed that no science background was necessary. Moving through the course, we also received excellent grades (attached); therefore, we assumed we were progressing as expected, as previously stated in an earlier paragraph of this appeal. Since there was no similarity between the assigned coursework and the final exam, why was so much weight allotted to the assignments? (Please see attached email from Debby Leach detailing the conversation had between Tiffany from ASUS and Dr. Stephenson regarding the assignments not being able to assess the student??s understanding of the course)
If this is true, how were we allowed to drop the course before the deadline based on poor performance? Further, the attached syllabus lists the learning outcomes of the quizzes, labs, forum discussions etc., which we assume are indeed a way to assess the student??s performance; otherwise, they would be omitted or assigned a lower weight.
Not only did it take some time to receive our grades on assignments, but Shantal??s final discussion post was graded as a 0, even though it was submitted to the forum well before the deadline (attached).
To think we were progressing as expected throughout the term, only to receive an F is very disheartening. Had we known, we would have dropped the course before the deadline so as not to have it affect our GPA in the long run.
Since we are quickly approaching the maximum word count, we would like to request a zoom meeting with Dr. Stephenson to discuss this appeal in greater detail. It has proven challenging to shorten it while ensuring our arguments come across as complete and factual. We thank you for your time and consideration.