Petition Letter
October 7, 2015
Dear Dr. Bernard,
At the recommendation of my academic advisor, David Yousef, I am writing to request that my CHEM 281 mark (Spring 2015) be dropped or that I receive credit standing for the course.
Following my acceptance into this course, I made contact with the disabilities services office to be assessed for accommodations based on my disability so that I could quickly get them implemented since this course was only six weeks long. As soon as I received my letter, I immediately sent a copy to my professor, Dr. John Carran requesting his advisement of what accommodations he could provide me for extra time for assignments which was outlined in the accommodations letter. I received a short email back from Dr. Carran which denied me any extra time.
Since the drop date without academic penalty and refund of student fees had already elapsed, I decided to continue in the course. However, during the first two weeks of the course, several students and I were facing many technical difficulties to which Dr. Carran was also unsympathetic about. This was quite frustrating and stressful; I have taken many online courses and have not experienced this level of difficulty before. With assignment dates looming, I became very overwhelmed. It was even more frustrating still, that on several occasions where an online tutorial session was scheduled that I wished to attend, the teaching assistants either confused their time or forgot it altogether. Although each tutorial was recorded for students to view, since I had set aside the scheduled tutorial time, a lot of my already precious time was wasted.
I pushed forward and was determined to succeed, especially since 60 of the course mark was the final exam (including laboratory examination). I felt there was still the possibility that I could do well in the course if I did well on the exam. Over the remaining three or four weeks in the course, I became increasingly unwell as I was trying anything possible to get through the course. I skipped medications in order to stay up and study on many occasions not sleeping for over 30 hours. I felt extreme pressure to keep going to make the deadlines and felt that there was nothing I could do. Finally, I emailed my disability advisor, Michael Beganyi explaining the difficulties I was having with the course due to the lack of additional time to complete my assignments. Since it was a short course however, there was not much that could be done to support me.
Throughout this time, I had appointments with my psychiatrist discussing all of the above, and we knew I was deteriorating. He made adjustments to my medications and a couple days before my final exam, suggested adding an additional medication to help with the increasing depression, agitation, anxiety and exhaustion. I explained to him that I did not feel comfortable taking the medication. I was quite anxious that if I did, I would not make it to write the exam (not being able to get up for it), or that the side effects would cause even more potential problems. He agreed with that decision as well. I wrote my exam after endless sleepless nights, hoping that the time and effort would translate well into the exam.
Upon finding out my final mark, I was devastated. I believe that the stress of the course without the additional extra time for my assignments and the circumstances within the course caused me to perform far worse. The only rational decision I made at the time was to drop Chemistry 285 which followed after this course. If I had proceeded in that course, Michael was going to help intercede to try to obtain the accommodations that I should have had for this course.
Since this occurred, I have still been attempting to get back to the state I was in prior to taking this course. It has taken a toll on me mentally and I have not been able to focus on the plans I had for my future. Perhaps if I had been more forceful about my accommodations, I would have received the extra time that I required. At this time, I have not enrolled in any courses at Queen¿¿s for this fall term. I am currently seeing my psychiatrist biweekly (as I have been for approximately the last two years) and we are re-evaluating my future goals.
For your evaluation, I have also submitted my accommodations letter from the disability services office, the e-mail exchanges I had with Dr. Carran and Michael Beganyi; the discussion posts I could access (one discussion forum has been removed from the course¿¿s Moodle site) regarding the technical difficulties myself and several other students experienced and regarding the forgotten or rescheduled tutorial sessions and a note from my psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Stokl.
I trust that this information will be sufficient in supporting my appeal to either have the course dropped or receive credit standing for this course, CHEM 281. Thank you for your time and kind consideration.
Sincerely,
Sunshine Hung
Student Number 10206487
Dear Dr. Bernard,
At the recommendation of my academic advisor, David Yousef, I am writing to request that my CHEM 281 mark (Spring 2015) be dropped or that I receive credit standing for the course.
Following my acceptance into this course, I made contact with the disabilities services office to be assessed for accommodations based on my disability so that I could quickly get them implemented since this course was only six weeks long. As soon as I received my letter, I immediately sent a copy to my professor, Dr. John Carran requesting his advisement of what accommodations he could provide me for extra time for assignments which was outlined in the accommodations letter. I received a short email back from Dr. Carran which denied me any extra time.
Since the drop date without academic penalty and refund of student fees had already elapsed, I decided to continue in the course. However, during the first two weeks of the course, several students and I were facing many technical difficulties to which Dr. Carran was also unsympathetic about. This was quite frustrating and stressful; I have taken many online courses and have not experienced this level of difficulty before. With assignment dates looming, I became very overwhelmed. It was even more frustrating still, that on several occasions where an online tutorial session was scheduled that I wished to attend, the teaching assistants either confused their time or forgot it altogether. Although each tutorial was recorded for students to view, since I had set aside the scheduled tutorial time, a lot of my already precious time was wasted.
I pushed forward and was determined to succeed, especially since 60 of the course mark was the final exam (including laboratory examination). I felt there was still the possibility that I could do well in the course if I did well on the exam. Over the remaining three or four weeks in the course, I became increasingly unwell as I was trying anything possible to get through the course. I skipped medications in order to stay up and study on many occasions not sleeping for over 30 hours. I felt extreme pressure to keep going to make the deadlines and felt that there was nothing I could do. Finally, I emailed my disability advisor, Michael Beganyi explaining the difficulties I was having with the course due to the lack of additional time to complete my assignments. Since it was a short course however, there was not much that could be done to support me.
Throughout this time, I had appointments with my psychiatrist discussing all of the above, and we knew I was deteriorating. He made adjustments to my medications and a couple days before my final exam, suggested adding an additional medication to help with the increasing depression, agitation, anxiety and exhaustion. I explained to him that I did not feel comfortable taking the medication. I was quite anxious that if I did, I would not make it to write the exam (not being able to get up for it), or that the side effects would cause even more potential problems. He agreed with that decision as well. I wrote my exam after endless sleepless nights, hoping that the time and effort would translate well into the exam.
Upon finding out my final mark, I was devastated. I believe that the stress of the course without the additional extra time for my assignments and the circumstances within the course caused me to perform far worse. The only rational decision I made at the time was to drop Chemistry 285 which followed after this course. If I had proceeded in that course, Michael was going to help intercede to try to obtain the accommodations that I should have had for this course.
Since this occurred, I have still been attempting to get back to the state I was in prior to taking this course. It has taken a toll on me mentally and I have not been able to focus on the plans I had for my future. Perhaps if I had been more forceful about my accommodations, I would have received the extra time that I required. At this time, I have not enrolled in any courses at Queen¿¿s for this fall term. I am currently seeing my psychiatrist biweekly (as I have been for approximately the last two years) and we are re-evaluating my future goals.
For your evaluation, I have also submitted my accommodations letter from the disability services office, the e-mail exchanges I had with Dr. Carran and Michael Beganyi; the discussion posts I could access (one discussion forum has been removed from the course¿¿s Moodle site) regarding the technical difficulties myself and several other students experienced and regarding the forgotten or rescheduled tutorial sessions and a note from my psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Stokl.
I trust that this information will be sufficient in supporting my appeal to either have the course dropped or receive credit standing for this course, CHEM 281. Thank you for your time and kind consideration.
Sincerely,
Sunshine Hung
Student Number 10206487