Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Petition Committee,

I am writing in relation to my final grade in KNPE 453 taught by teaching fellow Sadiya Abdulrabba. I received a failing grade in the course, which I believe is unfair given multiple different circumstances in which I will explain. I believe that a CR is warranted for this situation.

Towards the beginning of the course, I emailed Sadiya with some concerns about the format of one of the assignments. This assignment involved a group presentation aspect, in which I expressed my concerns about my severe social anxiety impeding the completion of these assignments. We came up with a solution that we both agreed upon. This would involve the two group presentations being weighted to the final assignment, that way I would only have to do one class presentation instead of three. Therefore, a large part of my overall grade in the course would now be applied to the final assignment. This solution was unique to my situation, and I was very grateful that Sadiya was able to make this adjustment for me.

The PSAC 901 strike negatively affected this course more than the other courses I was enrolled in this semester. Since this course was taught by a teaching fellow, it was completely brought to a halt when the strike began, with zero communication between the instructor and the students about lectures or any assignments.

Once the strike was over, due to the lack of communication during the strike, Sadiya decided to cancel the final assignment and instead re-weight it to the midterm assignment completed earlier in the semester. I was unable to complete this midterm assignment due to extenuating circumstances that could not be addressed with academic considerations. Since the midterm assignment was only worth 10% at the time, I willingly accepted the negative effect it would have on my grade, with hopes I would be able to make up for it by doing well on the final assignment. The re-weighting of the final assignment to the midterm assignment was detrimental to my grade since I had received 0% due to the lack of a submission. Now that the final assignment was cancelled, that also meant that the agreement Sadiya and I had come to earlier in the semester would also be negatively affected. This resulted in me receiving a grade of zero on the presentation assignments, which were supposed to be weighted to the final assignment.

If the PSAC 901 strike had not happened, I would have been able to use the final assignment to bring up my grade to a passing grade, given that the final assignment was weighted to be the majority portion of my grade. I was also given zero opportunity to receive marks for the group presentation assignments, which were supposed to be weighted to the final assignment. I contacted Sadiya after seeing that I received a failing grade on SOLUS, asking if it was possible to complete the midterm assignment before final grades were due, since it was worth a large number of marks now. However, she said that this was not possible due to final grades already being submitted. This course is required for me to graduate on time this year, and the strike put that in jeopardy.

I believe that in my situation, a fair/reliable grade cannot be assigned due to the unique agreement Sadiya and I had on the presentation assignments, and because of the cancellations of coursework such as the final assignment. These cancellations resulted in me missing out on a large majority of the course's potential marks. I believe that a CR is warranted for my situation as the circumstances that severely affected my grade were out of my control.

Sincerely,
Curtis Ta