Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am writing to appeal for a credit standing in the RELS163 course I took in the Winter 2022 semester. The extenuating circumstances I faced were beyond my control, and I was also denied accommodation by my professor, which severely impacted my grade. Throughout the Winter semester of 2022, my mental health was steeply declining, and the course RELS 163 heightened these issues to the point that it severely affected my academic performance. At the time, I had no other available resources, so during the course, I reached out to the Queens Student Wellness Services to help discuss my mental health issues. Kelly Mannen, the intake and triage Nurse at the Queens Student Wellness Services, helped identify what problems I was dealing with and how they prohibited me from attaining academic success, specifically with verbal participation. She also gave me temporary accommodations due to my impairments, which specifically required consideration for in-class participation. I attempted to show these accommodations to the professor of the course I was struggling with. Unfortunately, the professor believed this accommodation was insufficient to allow me alternatives to verbal participation to achieve these marks in the course. The professor went on to say that she does not allow ulterior methods of participation, even with my circumstances. Also, the professor mentioned that the 0 marks I would receive on participation would not be substantial to my final grade. This was not true, as the participation marks constituted 10% of the whole grade of the course and would have brought my final course grade up from a C+ to a B+, which is three whole grade levels. I made an effort to attend all tutorials for the semester, and my written work was well done and reflected in the course, but the limited ways to engage in the class left me in a place of academic and mental distress. I discussed alternative recommendations with the professor that I reviewed with Kelly Mannen, such as allocating the mark to the final exam or submitting written submissions to satisfy the participation requirement instead. Still, the professor denied these attempts to accommodate me and my ongoing disability. This left me ashamed about the issues I struggled with and discouraged me even more from seeking out further resources and gathering information to appeal to my mark. As this was an ongoing process, Kelly Mannen gave me a document providing the next steps I should take for the issues I faced. Furthermore, as a first-year student at the time, I was unaware of the resources available to me, and I wanted to ensure I had all the details about my diagnosis before taking these steps. I was allowed to take these next steps in the summer of 2022. I spoke to a medical professional who finally diagnosed me with anxiety disorder and explained how this disorder limits me in specific ways, including participation and seeking help when needed. Throughout the Winter 2022 semester, this was the only course out of the five I was taking that required verbal participation to receive marks. From the presented reasons, I am only appealing this course due to my circumstances that prevented academic success, and not the other courses. After being able to receive long-term documentation from a medical professional that I did not have access to in the winter of 2022, I am now securely a part of QSAS, and all my professors this year have had no issue granting alternative methods for participation. As accommodations and QSAS are put in place to help remove academic barriers, the grade I received due to the extenuating circumstances I faced did not align with the values instilled in QSAS.

To conclude, im appealing for a credit standing for the grade I received in RELS163 due to the extenuating circumstances I was facing psychologically that were beyond my control. My ongoing struggles prohibited me from engaging verbally, and even with a professional accommodation from Queens Student Wellness Services that my instructor denied, I was left with no other option to receive marks for this section in the course. Accommodations are implemented to support students with disabilities in pursuing their academic goals and encourage the use of a well-implemented Universal Design for Learning to remove disability-related academic barriers. For these reasons, I believe the grade I received in the course went against these values and diminished and undermined the disability I was and am still struggling with.