Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean, Dr. Benard,

I am writing this letter to you in hope that you will allow my final three essays for HIST 306 to be remarked. Should the outcome be that my final grade (C) turns out to be lower than to begin with (or the same), then I am hoping you will grant me a credit standing for the course. My appeal is not without reason, for I believe I have experienced extenuating circumstances during the time-frame of this course.

To begin with, I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and clinical depression in the summer of 2015. My family physician, Dr. Conrad Fischer, prescribed antidepressants to me. I will be receiving a letter from him confirming this, which I will later amended to the appeal, once I receive the documents. I will also include a letter received from my psychiatrist at Queen's, Dr. Simon O'Brien.

I enrolled in HIST 306 in September 2015, since I was eager to learn about the Holocaust. This course is also required as part of my degree requirements as a Bachelor of Arts; you must complete 6.0 units in a third year course in order to progress to upper year courses. However, anxiety and depression, as well as the antidepressants, took their toll on me, and hindered my academic potential from being fulfilled, and lead me to this appeal.

In this past year, you will notice that HIST 306 is the only class I received a grade of less than a B- in. This is because Professor Gordon Dueck (the instructor of HIST 306) initiated an investigation and ultimately decided on a finding of a departure of academic integrity in my second semester. I was already fighting rising anxiety levels, and this caused it to spiral to a new level. I was shocked, and in a state of panic, since I absolutely did not intend to plagiarize, and to this day, I refuse to believe that I breached academic integrity. I made the mistake of not fighting the decision further, and if I could go back, I would have looked into legal counsel, for I believed, and still do, that I was innocent. I had the option of dropping the course, but I needed it to progress to upper-year courses, and did not want to retake it the following year (fall 2016), since I would have to repeat another year. Further, I believed my previous assignments (which I did well on) as well as my future ones would be enough to carry me to a C+ (the minimum grade required to progress to upper-year courses). This ordeal no-doubt exacerbated my mental-health problems, making it harder for me to perform on the remaining three essays. Still, I worked hard and invested plenty of my time to write successful essays. Yet, I ended up with a B- in all three of the essays. This can be attributed to the intense amount of pressure I was under to work hard for a minimum grade of C+ in the course. This only caused my anxiety and depression to worsen, and this entire episode left me confused and lost, and I struggled to write the essays to the best of my ability due to this.
The finding of the departure of academic integrity resulted in a 0 on the essay which was worth 17.5 of the overall grade. Prior to the finding, I had a grade of 72 on a paper and the mid term examination was 87. In consultation with the Department of History, a modified syllabus was developed for me in which I had to write three essays instead of attending class. Professor James Carson was placed as my new instructor for the remainder of the course. I was given a B- for all three essays that i wrote. I believe that the first one was worth at least a B, the second one a B+ or A-, and the last, an A. If i can get them remarked, and if they are successfully remarked, then I can get a grade of a B-, which I feel I deserve in the course. If it were not for my mental-health issues and being unfairly accused of plagiarism, I could have definitely ended with a grade of at least a B+.

Due to this overall grade of C, I have had to switch my major from a Bachelor of Arts Honors to a Bachelor of Arts General degree as I have not met the requirement to move to an honours program in History. This change has meant that, had I wanted an honours degree, since I would have had to repeat this course again next year and add an entire year to my program. As I will not be pursuing an honours degree regardless of the outcome of this appeal, it would hurt even more to see this grade show up on my transcript, given that it is no longer detrimental to my degree/unit requirements to graduate with a general degree. Potentially boosting this grade to a B- or receiving a credit standing would more accurately reflect my academic potential and allow me to pursue other academic goals. As stated above, should the case be that I receive a grade even lower than what I am appealing (or the same) on the re-graded assignments; I sincerely hope you will grant me a credit standing.

Following my second year at Queen's, I have not received a single grade below a B-, and it is no coincidence that this course is the only exception, since it is a seminar which caused me a great deal of anxiety, and because of being unfairly accused of breaching academic integrity.

I will be eagerly awaiting your decision,

Thank you very much,

Sincerely,

Safwan Dadabhoy.