Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Appeal Number: 9
Decision Date: May 20, 2014
Associate Dean: J. Hugh Horton, Ph.D.
Student Name: Katie Waters
Student Email: 12kw33@queensu.ca

Course: MATH 121
Term: Fall/Winter
Year: 2014
Category: Request to have course work reviewed, re-read or grades reevaluated
Instructor: Troy Day
Additional Information: Final grade

Course: PHYS 117
Term: Fall/Winter
Year: 2014
Category: Request to have course work reviewed, re-read or grades reevaluated
Instructor: Anne Topper
Additional Information: Final exam




Dear Ms. Waters:

I have carefully considered your appeal to request to have all of your work in MATH 121 (FW 2013/14) re-evaluated as well as your final exam in PHYS 117 (FW 2013/14) re-evaluated. After reviewing your file I have decided to deny your request.

Your appeal letter does not, as required under the appeal regulations, clearly articulate the basis on which your grades in either MATH 121 or PHYS 117 should be reconsidered. Appeal Regulation 3.3.7 (To Request a Review of Instructors€™ Decisions on Grading of Final Examinations and/or Term Work) clearly outlines the standards which must be met in order to appeal a grade in a course:
A student may request a review of any grade assigned in a course subject to the marking scheme set out by the course instructor(s) if the student can:

€¢ clearly articulate grounds for reconsideration and identify specifically the substance of an answer where the student feels the mark given was not evaluated fully;

€¢ show, in an objective answer, that a correct answer has been counted as incorrect;

€¢ show, in a subjective or essay answer, that the response has been under evaluated substantially; and

€¢ provide relevant documentation to support the appeal (i.e. class notes, etc.).

It is the responsibility of the student to preserve all exercises, papers, reports and other graded material for the course and to submit these materials with the appeal. In any formal appeal of term work, the student must accept the responsibility for ensuring that the work presented for reassessment is in fact the original term work submitted for evaluation.

You provide no specific grounds for your appeal in either course, nor have you provided any of the term work (e.g. midterms, lab reports) which would be required to make an informed decision regarding your grading in these courses. It is also not clear to me that you have undertaken any initiative to approach your instructors to review your final exams in these courses in order to gather the information you require to articulate grounds for reconsideration of the exam. Therefore, there is no reasonable basis on which I can approach the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics or the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy and request that they review your grades.

If you wish to appeal the Associate Dean€™s decision to the Board of Studies, you must submit a letter of intent to appeal within 21 days of receiving this decision. Appeal forms are available from this office (F200 Mackintosh-Corry Hall) or on the web: http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/help/forms General information on appeals is available at http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/academics/academic-appeals. You may contact Mr. Harry Smith, Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Coordinator for advice on matters of procedure and on obtaining a representative. His office is located in room 153 Richardson Hall and he can be reached by phone (533-6495) or e-mail (drm@queensu.ca).

Sincerely,

J. Hugh Horton, Ph.D.
Associate Dean (Studies)



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