Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Appeal Grounds Details: 1. I am appealing the Associate Dean’s decision to deny my appeal for an extended incomplete in DEVS 358 (F21) and DEVS 340 (W22), on the grounds of procedural fairness, due to the misguided information given related to my request prior to the submission of this academic petition as was the same for the EMPR Courses which were granted. The DEVS department helped me develop an academic plan in January 2023 and advised me I did not have to appeal, but approval was at the Professor’s discretion. Both the DEVS 340 and 358 professors showed duty/willingness to accommodate based on the barriers I have faced due to my extenuating circumstances, and we had both signed incomplete forms. It took from March 16th to April 12th, 2023, for the Advising/DEVS Department to clarify whether I needed to appeal for incompletes. Furthermore, due to my inability to upload assignments to the appeals portal, I emailed asc.petitions@queensu.ca twice after I submitted my petition requesting to forward my completed assignments, based on the understanding that if you are requesting grading of assignments, it would be sent from the appeals office and was told “no” twice. However, I am not confident that information was passed on to the associate dean and the relevant professors, which could have impacted the decision for DEVS 340 and 358. I have been unfairly penalized by a system that is not accessible or straightforward. I am concerned that some of these decisions did not account for situational fairness when I was trying to do the right thing. This entire process was anxiety-inducing, incredibly confusing, and overwhelming when I could barely cope with trying to finish the work. Everyone was on different pages; frankly, I did not know what to do or who to communicate with anymore. I could not have started any part of my appeal before figuring out this situation due to the regulation that you could not appeal classes from the same semester separately. Hence, if I had been informed of the correct protocol, I could have appealed much earlier in the semester before I did all this work.
2. I am appealing the Associate Dean’s decision to deny my appeal for an extended incomplete in LAW 204 (S20), POLS 261 (F20), and SPAN 111 (W21) and a drop in DEVS 361 (F21) on the grounds of procedural fairness as this decision does not support the factual evidence that these professors were supportive of an extended incomplete/drop and hence this decision may have exceeded jurisdiction. I shared the personal nature of my struggles, and the four professors were willing to fulfill their duty to accommodate. The reasoning for denial for LAW 204 and POLS 261, that “too much work was outstanding,” does not reflect my communications with those professors, stating that I have two assignments in LAW 204 and one in POLS 261 outstanding. I knew that SPAN 111 was a long shot because it has a different professor; hence, I inquired whether an incomplete was feasible and was told that the current coordinator would grade my work.
3. I am appealing the Associate Dean’s decision to deny my appeal to drop DEVS 220 (F19), DEVS 260 (F19), POLS 212 (W20), DEVS 300 (F21), POLS 211 (S21) after the academic deadline on the grounds of procedural fairness as the assumption that “the integrity of Arts and Science transcripts, in general, would be greatly diminished if the Faculty were to effect changes to students records…” is based on an “impressionistic conclusion” (OHRC, 64) that granting these would diminish the integrity of transcripts. Secondly, “an education provider is required to take requests for accommodation in good faith (OHRC, 71)”, and I am not asking to alter a grade where I have not met the objectives or have not completed the work, but merely to mitigate “the barriers I have faced academically that impeded me from participating fully”. I am also confused about the reasoning for more documentation as the very aspect of anxiety, depression, and ADHD is that inconsistency is a part of the disability depending on many different factors hence beyond my control.
4. I am appealing to the Associate Dean to consider letting me drop DEVS 210 (W22) and get Credit or Aerograt Standing in DEVS 354 if eligible (W22) after denying my request for an extended incomplete, on the grounds of procedural fairness the regulation under the OHRC that when one option is not feasible, there is an obligation to look at the second-best option to limit adverse academic impacts. Furthermore, in communications with the appeal team, I was told that “if we find that you are not eligible for what you are asking for in a particular class, we will let you know,” so I thought that they would reach out for more information if needed before the final petition decision.
5. I am appealing the Associate Dean’s decision to deny my appeal to waive the 1-year petition deadline to request Credit Standing for Math 126B and ECON 110B (W18) on the grounds of procedural fairness and new documentation proving the grades in these courses would have been greatly impacted by the functional limitations listed in the ADHD report.