Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear To Whom It May Concern,

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to formally request credit standing in the course CHEM 112 for the 2024-2025 academic year. My performance has been negatively impacted by a series of personal and health-related challenges throughout the year. I also believe that my performance in the course was significantly and unfairly impacted by the extended PSAC 901 strike, which disrupted access to academic support and essential components of the course. My final grade does not accurately reflect my abilities or commitment to the course, due to this combination of factors, which were entirely beyond my control.

As a first-year student living far from home, navigating university life for the first time, this experience was incredibly overwhelming. I had no close support system nearby, and being abnormally sick while trying to perform academically added a heavy physical and mental burden.

Early October, I began facing severe chest pain and lung-related problems that ended up requiring multiple clinical visits and hospital assessments. I was required to submit a Short Term academic consideration request for the time period of October 24, 2024, to October 26, 2024, because my health issues made it immensely difficult to complete any of my assigned tasks, including the Qualitative Analysis lab report. On October 27th, I had to visit the CDK Walk-in Clinic in downtown Kingston because I had difficulty breathing and intense chest pain. Since the clinic is always over capacity, I was forced to wait a few hours before meeting with a physician. I was prescribed medication that I had to pick up all the way at the Arc Drugsmart that same day. On October 31st, 4 days later, I woke up at 3 am due to the severe pain in my chest and trouble breathing. I had to walk from my residence late at night all the way to the Kingston General Hospital. There was only one doctor working that night, so it wasn’t until 10 am that I was discharged from the hospital. Although the doctor was never able to truly determine the source of this lung pain, I was prescribed much stronger medication to pick up. These repeated medical incidents and the time spent seeking care significantly impacted my ability to complete coursework, attend classes, and maintain my usual level of academic performance during that period. Throughout the rest of the first semester, I still had chest pain and excessive coughing even after the CHEM112 mid-year exam, and when I went home for the winter break. I was then able to speak with my family doctor in Oakville, get a chest x-ray, and was prescribed another treatment plan, which helped manage my symptoms. Balancing this with full-time coursework was extremely difficult and affected my ability to perform at my full potential. Despite being ill, I still did my best to attend lectures, complete assignments, and keep up with the material on my own.

After the first semester, I was relying on the second term to improve my standing in the course. I attended the final review session on April 7th and felt well-prepared for the exam. However, on the night of April 8th, the day before the final, I began experiencing sudden and intense symptoms. I was extremely nauseous, unable to sleep, and developed chills, joint pain, and a high fever. At the time, I assumed it might be stress-related, but my condition rapidly worsened. On the day of the exam, April 9th, I was in extremely poor health. I couldn’t keep any food down, was shivering uncontrollably, and felt physically weak and mentally foggy. Despite this, I attempted to write the exam. I did not want to miss the exam and was unsure of the proper procedures for requesting a deferral, especially given how suddenly my symptoms worsened. During it, I struggled to stay focused, recall information, or concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. The illness severely affected my ability to demonstrate the knowledge I had built throughout the term. As my symptoms were not improving in the days following the exam, I visited the CDK clinic in Kingston on April 13th. I was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal virus and continued to experience nausea, chills, and difficulty eating or hydrating. Unfortunately, the illness significantly impacted my ability to perform to the best of my abilities during the final. I was instructed to follow a strict diet and continue self-isolation, as this virus is untreatable by medications.

During the strike, lab sessions were cancelled, removing a critical opportunity for hands-on learning and practical application of course material. This included the corrosion of metals lab, the kinetics lab, and all of lab make-up week. Similarly, tutorials were also cancelled, and although practice questions were eventually posted online, they were released very late in the term, during April, without the presence of TAs to offer any explanations or guidance. Lab reports were assigned during this time, but never ended up being marked, meaning valuable opportunities for feedback and learning were lost. This applies to the Acid Base Titrations lab report, the Iron(III)acac Synthesis and Analysis lab report, the Vitamin C Titration lab report, as well as all incomplete labs. Meanwhile, there were also no TAs to attend office hours or to provide instructional support, and I received no feedback on my tutorial work or lab submissions throughout the second half of the semester. This left me with little to no insight into how I was performing or how I could improve prior to the final exam. Due to the lack of academic support and delayed resources, I had to seek and pay for external help from other resources, which was not always consistent with course expectations.

While lectures, homework, and quizzes continued, these alone were insufficient to maintain the same quality of learning. The quizzes themselves also appeared to be affected by the strike, as there were no TAs to read them over, and multiple questions had to be removed due to errors. This reduced the number of questions per quiz, meaning that even a single mistake had a disproportionately large impact on the quiz grade. Despite these challenges, the only grading adjustment implemented was the combination of Fall and Winter lab and tutorial grades, with the lowest two dropped. I believe that this is a very minimal adjustment from the original policy.

Although I ended the course with a B+, CHEM 112 is a full-year, 6.0-credit course, and its weight on my GPA is significant. I performed well in every other aspect of the course, such as the lab reports, the quizzes, the homework, and the tutorials. However, there was a noticeable decline in my exam performances, which I strongly believe was the direct result of my poor health as well as the lack of TA support, missing feedback, and reduced academic guidance. For instance, the final exam focused heavily on calculations, and under normal circumstances, tutorials and lab reports would have offered structured opportunities to practice these skills and receive feedback on my mistakes. Yet without those supports and while dealing with significant health issues during the exam, it became far more difficult to succeed on this final assessment.

In light of these circumstances, I respectfully request that credit standing be granted for this course. I believe this would more accurately reflect the work I put into the course and the barriers I faced. I have attached all of my supporting documentation, including my medical records, proof of strike disruptions, and proof of hospital/clinical visitations. I care deeply about my academic progress and did my best to persevere despite this difficult and unpredictable year. I hope you will take this into account when reviewing my request. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Natalie Dawood
Student ID: 20454182