Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Carly Farun, and I am the Queen‘s student who almost died from bacterial
meningitis in December, 2023. During that academic year, my health suffered
immensely, and it took me some time to admit how significantly my overall cognitive
functioning had been impacted.
At first, I was eager to return to school, however the first term back I struggled due to a
lack of academic supports. After failing most of my classes during the 2023/2024
academic year, I worked with the university to clear my academic record, and I was
eagerly awaiting beginning of the 2024/2025 school year, with the appropriate supports
in place to ensure my academic success. Before the school year started, I reached out
to my QSAS advisor Christina, and we spoke on September 4th, to ensure that the
school understood my accommodation needs, and that I understood what I needed to
do in order to put those accommodations in place. 
Christina was made aware that my disability lead to me struggling with challenges
including frequent headaches, immune system issues which lead to frequent illnesses
and absences, severe chronic fatigue, binocular dilopia, weak hearing, light sensitivity
and neurocognitive disorder. 
My in-person meeting with Christina on September 9, 2024 was very productive. At that
time, we reviewed my existing accommodations and a number of temporary
accommodations were added to support my newer disabilities, and would be made
permanent pending additional medical documentation. 
Christina confirmed that she had augmented my pre-existing accommodations (which
included up to 7 day extensions, time and a half for exams, semiprivate exam writing,
etc.) with an extensive list of additional accommodations including double time, private
exam room (with dimmable lights), permission for frequent absences (due to health
issues), etc. Knowing that I had the support of Queen’s and QSAS, and that I had
appropriate accommodations in place, I began the school year optimistically. 
Within that same week, I submitted all of the required supporting medical
documentation. Based on what Christina had told me, all of my accommodations should
have been firmly in place to support my academic success all year. I was still awaiting a
neurologist appointment, so I tried to contact Christina to see if it was possible to
temporarily add a memory aid accommodation pending that documentation, in
alignment with the recommendations that my family physician had made. I emailed
Christina many times, however, did not receive a response.
I continued to try to reach Christina for a couple of months, but was unable to reach her.
On October 9, 2024 I showed up to the semiprivate exam hall to write my midterm exam
for ARTH374-001, and was told that I had NO other accommodations in place, including
my ongoing pre-existing/permanent academic accommodations (e.g. computer
access and time and a half for exams, etc.), which Queen’s had full documentation for. I
tried to reason with the proctor, however, they confirmed that I was not entitled to any
accommodations. I did my best, but failed that exam.  

My mother and I tried desperately to reach Christina and QSAS over the next few
months, to no avail. Given that I had completely inadequate accommodations in place,
despite Queen’s having all of my medical documentation, I knew I had no chance of
passing any of my courses, became depressed and lost all motivation. Finally, in late
November, I found out that I had a different QSAS advisor, Toni Thornton. At that time
she advised me that she added the memory aid as an accommodation, pending my
neurology appointment. 
Even after speaking with Toni, it appears that my accommodations were not in place. 
Prior to the final exam for ARTH374-001, I received an email from Professor Ron
Spronk, who advised me that I should not write the final exam, as he would not pass me
due to my frequent absences.  I tried to explain that I had an accommodation which
allowed for absences, however, he indicated that this had not been communicated to
him by QSAS. 
Despite many, many attempts to schedule a meeting with Toni during first term, due to
her lack of availability, we were not able to meet until January 30, 2025. Unfortunately,
this was after I had already failed all of my fall term classes due to the lack of timely
support being provided by Queen’s and Queen’s failing to provide accommodations for
which they had full medical documentation. 
I have correspondence from Toni Thornton which confirms that I had submitted all of the
required medical documentation, however, due to challenges with staffing and workload
at Queen’s my accommodations were not appropriately in place. 
Due to the anxiety, depression, sense of failure and hopelessness caused by Queen’s
failure to accommodate me, I was on track to fail second term as well, but dropped out
of all of my courses just before the final deadline. The year that I had worked so hard to
set myself up to succeed for, had been a devastating failure for me. 
Queen’s had full knowledge of my situation. I had formally engaged the university to put
accommodations in place, and had provided full medical documentation, yet Queen’s
did not fulfill their legal obligation under the Accessibilities for Ontarians with Disabilities
Act to provide me with accommodations for which they had the appropriate medical
documentation. 
In addition to working with medical practitioners to address my medical/cognitive issues,
I have been in a deep depression since then, and am only now able to proceed with an
appeal to have those failures removed from my transcript by requesting that the courses
be dropped after the academic deadline.
It is my sincere desire to return to university to complete my undergraduate degree in
the near future.  I understand that I am now in a position of poor academic standing due
to these failing grades. I now understand that Queen’s had a legal requirement to
provide me with accommodations to support my documented disabilities and that

Queen’s failed me in every possible way that year. I am hopeful that Queen’s will
remove my failures from fall term 2025, given the circumstances, so that I do not have
to bring this matter forward to the Human Rights Tribunal