Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: February 6th, 2023
Dear Dr. Stephenson,

My name is Connor Naismith, and I am a second-year art-sci student at Queen??s. I am petitioning for my grade in PHYS 117 to not be included in my GPA calculations due to extenuating circumstances that affected my ability to succeed in the course. The extenuating circumstance I am referring to is a concussion I sustained at the end of first semester last year, right before the exam period at that time. The concussion occurred on December 4, 2021 in residence and occurred as a result of accidentally hitting the back of my head on a wall, after which I went to KGH where the doctor there diagnosed me with a concussion. The documentation given to me by the ER doctor at KGH is the documentation that I provided the Queen??s academic considerations department when I originally asked for exam deferrals, however I am not sure if I still possess this specific piece of documentation. The PHYS 117 course I was in ended in April of 2022, however I believe the events of December 4, 2021 to be the major contributing factor that dropped my mark in the course to a point irredeemable by my own efforts.

I have had multiple concussions in the past, one of which kept me out of school in Grade 7 for two months, and as such I have a specific doctor in my hometown whom I consult whenever I get a concussion and whose documentation of the incident I will be providing with this letter. Dr. Knapp monitored my progress over the Christmas break and suggested that I engage in very little schoolwork and studying during my recovery. However, due to my deferrals, I found it to be impossible to follow his directions, as I wanted to study and exceed in my exams that had been scheduled for the week(s) immediately following the Christmas break. The deferral exam for physics was scheduled a week or so after the end of the Christmas break, and although I hadn??t fully recovered from my concussion, (It has been mentioned to me by family and friends that they do not believe I have fully regained my prior cognitive ability to this day) I chose to write the exam as I believed I did not have the option to defer it again, nor did I want to keep pushing it off to a later date. This brings me to the second unfortunate event that affected my performance on the physics exam, which was technical difficulties using Examity. My physics exam had been scheduled for 2:30pm, however Examity would not work on that particular day, and I ended up being on the phone with both Queen??s tech support and Examity tech support for five hours until I was eventually able to write the exam at 7:30pm that night. As you may expect, the five hours of frustration and stress that resulted from the technical difficulties made me very exhausted, which when coupled with the concussion rendered my ability to recall course content basically non-existent.

I would now like to circle back to my history with concussions, as I believe it may provide insight into how serious of an injury it is for myself in particular. As I mentioned earlier in the letter, the concussion I sustained last year was not my first, in fact it was my fourth medically confirmed concussion and I suspect it to be my sixth or seventh concussion overall. My concussions have ranged in severity but have all caused impairments in my ability to focus and retain information, especially during the period in which my brain is recovering. I also have deformities in my eyes that make them especially sensitive to light, and when coupled with a concussion makes it almost unbearable to subject myself to any kind of intense light, whether that be just the Sun, LED lightbulbs or device screens. Because I do my notes online for the sake of time management, I forced myself to study despite the discomfort and previous advice from Dr. Knapp to stay away from such lighting in order to allow my brain to recover. I am positive this was detrimental to my recovery but at the time I believed it would make a difference in my exam marks. If documentation of the issues surrounding my eyes that worsens my concussion symptoms is needed, I can reach out to my childhood ophthalmologist Dr. Gary Bonn and/or CHEO to find a record of that.

I am requesting my PHYS 117 grade not be included in my GPA calculations due to the circumstances surrounding the time of the course??s assessments as it is currently bringing my culminative GPA down a lot while I??m trying to increase it to get out of academic probation. I take full responsibility for my failure to pass the PHYS 117 course, but I ask that it not be included as to give me a better opportunity to pull myself out of the hole that resulted from last year??s unfortunate events.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Connor Naismith
SN: 20295489