Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern, I am writing to request that you consider my petition to drop ASTR101 after the deadline. I would like to share the circumstances and impact it had on my academic performance. In the 2025 Winter semester, I took the ASTR101 online course.

The extenuating circumstances in my petition is that although I have academic considerations through QSAS, including a seven-day extension for any assignment among others, and despite my repeated attempts to receive those considerations for this course, they were not given at any time and this greatly impacted my academic performance.

I emailed the professor before the start of the course when I knew I was enrolled for the Winter semester about what the accommodations were like in his class so that I could be prepared for his course, but he never responded. But, despite my repeated attempts and requests, I did not receive a response from him, and I did not receive the accommodation. Once the course started he noted that his preferred form of communication was through email, that he checks it frequently, and in accordance with that I would email him with the seven-day extension email for my assignments, which is one of many accommodations through QSAS, and these emails that I would send would be every couple of weeks for each assignment that was given in that course. Although I would send these emails in a timely manner, he never responded to any of those emails and still has not. I spoke to other classmates about whether or not their emails were answered by the professor and they shared with me that they were getting replies on other questions from him via email. It was quite difficult and frustrating not hearing back from him about my request for accommodation. I never emailed a TA as I am told not to do that with academic accommodations by my academic accommodations advisor and many of my professors.

The professor did not provide the considerations I needed or a reason why he would not allow it. This greatly impacted my preparation for tests and compromised my ability to perform overall. I had four to five courses that had very similar dates for exams or other assignments that this course also had for assignments. I contacted my academic accommodations advisor, Caroline Teske, in February asking about what next steps should be for me with this course and was told that the email needed to be reviewed by the instructor (my ASTR professor) to determine what can be granted given the requirements of the course.

Despite these challenges, I tried to manage my coursework and followed the correct channels to request my academic accommodations for this course. I did not drop the course by the deadline because I originally believed that I could manage the workload alongside my other courses with my academic accommodations through QSAS. I continued to hope and expect that my approved accommodation would be provided soon and in time to perform sufficiently well in the course. The accommodation in this course would have enabled me to meet the academic requirements, had they been implemented. If I had been given my approved accommodation in this course, I believe that my work would have been much more thorough and less rushed. When the accommodations were not granted, I realized that keeping up with the deadlines was unmanageable, but this became clear after the drop deadline had passed.

I feel strongly that I made very reasonable efforts to seek the accommodation and that not having the accommodation in this class significantly impacted my grade. If I had known that his silence meant that he would not provide the accommodation set in place by QSAS, I would have withdrawn well before the deadline. Without the QSAS accommodations I was forced to complete assignments under compressed deadlines which affected both the depth and quality of my work and ultimately impacted my performance and ability to demonstrate my full understanding of the material. Despite my efforts to manage coursework and follow proper channels for requesting accommodations, the absence of timely communication prevented me from benefiting from supports intended to ensure equitable academic performance. The combined effect of these overlapping deadlines and unmet accommodations created conditions that were both distressing and hindered my ability to perform in this course. I have some documented correspondence in support of my petition (although some correspondence with the professor was deleted unknowingly through Outlook a few weeks ago).
I am asking to have DR replace the grade for this course.
Thank you for your consideration.