Petition Letter
I needed to have major head surgery at the end of September and was in the hospital for about a week afterwards. Within the first couple days of school I submitted the forms needed to receive academic accommodations. I was granted severe accommodations from September 28-November 9 (meaning that I would be missing labs and unable to complete any work, tests or assignments during this time). However, the majority of my classes refused to provide appropriate accommodations beyond what was included in the universal design despite the documentation and extenuating circumstances that I had. For example, BIOL 102 would not allow me to make up quizzes and instead gave me zeros. And, PSYC 100 has given me zeroes on my missed labs once I had exceeded the number that could be dropped. I then made an appointment with the academic advisor for kinesiology students who was not able to help with ensuring my accommodations were upheld and instead recommended that I drop two courses and make them up over the summer or next year. However, I was never interested in dropping classes. Due to the lack of accommodations I decided to focus on the classes I could catch up in since my other classes continued to fail to provide me with accommodations. Later I had made a zoom appointment with the accommodation department for arts and science students who were surprised that my courses were unable to provide accommodations. I was told that they would be able to add me back into the course and now they are saying that this is something they will not do. Dealing with the professors, TAs and accommodations people has been an incredibly frustrating and difficult process. It has been very stressful trying to deal with the accommodations for school while I was also having surgery and recovering afterwards. Additionally, I have been given contradicting advice from various representatives of the school that has led me to my current situation. This has had a significant impact on my academic performance and the decisions I have made. As a result, I had to drop classes because the professors were not willing to provide me with the accommodations that I needed. I am a good student with a desire to do well in school. I would really appreciate being put back into CHEM 112 because I do not want to be behind. Since I have dropped two courses I do not think that I would be able to make them both up in the summer since one is a full year course. Hence my desire to re-join this class and so I do not fall any further behind after a lack of support and guidance from my classes during this difficult time. The amount of academic support that has been available continues to be extremely underwhelming. This has forced me to drop classes that I otherwise would have remained in had I known the school should have been able to enforce my accommodations for a severe medical reason beyond my control.