Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Addressed to the Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing to have my STAT 263 grade removed from my official transcript and replaced with the CR standing. Before I begin, I'd like to just clarify which faculty I am in. Right now, in SOLUS, it states that I am in Bachelor of Nursing Science, a program I had applied to earlier in the year. However, I am withdrawing my acceptance and switching back to Environmental Life Science. This change will appear by Monday June 30, 2014. Michelle Gallant, Arts & Science Senior Associate, has helped facilitate this switch back into my original program and can confirm this change.

The reason for this appeal is that extenuating circumstances beyond my control affected my ability to write the my last exam of the winter term, the STAT 263 exam on June 16, 2014 from 2:00-5:00pm. The day before my exam, I received a call stating that a close family member was diagnosed with various inoperable cancers. After receiving the news, I was very distraught emotionally and had a very hard time focusing on my studying. I had tried to stay calm, focus on finishing studying and getting through my exam (worth 60). However, I had not gotten much studying done due to the emotional shock and turmoil. Upon entering the exam, I had convinced myself that I was still able to complete my exam successfully and do well since I felt well prepared. During the 3 hours, I could not focus on the questions in front of me and could not help but to think of my ill family member. At the end of the exam, I realized that I had not even finished all the questions and could potentially fail the course. I went to my professor, Chuck Molson, immediately after the exam to explain my situation. He took down my student number & name and told me to go to Health Counseling & Disability Services to explain my situation. Although HCDS was closed at that time, I went as early as possible the next morning to their office. I explained what had occurred to a Personal Counsellor and received a Request for Short-Term Academic Accommodations form. Once I received this form, I contacted my professor and e-mailed him a copy of the form. He agreed that he would try to give my exam mark a different weighting to receive a pass and have my mark changed to a CR. However, I had to wait 2 weeks in order to received the final mark. Fortunately, I did well enough on the exam that I did not need a different weighting and received the credit. He e-mailed me recommending that I appeal to the Associate Dean (Studies) and that he would certainly support the change to CR. I responded back to him that I would certainly do that and asked him how I would go about this appeal. At this time, it was already 18 days after my exam and I waited for him to respond. However, the semester was already finished and I received no response from him. I decided to wait a few more days for a response. When I had not received one, I re-sent my e-mail two more times, without a response. On June 21, 2014, I spoke to Michelle Gallant about switching back to Environmental Life Science. I brought up my issue of an appeal and the fact that I still had not heard back from my professor. She then notified me that there was a 21 day deadline that could potentially be waived and that I should send in my appeal as soon as possible. She sent me an e-mail for the Appeals link and I immediately began working on the Appeal Letter. Due to the fact that I was unaware of the deadline, I would like to request to have this 21 day deadline to be waived. I have worked very hard on getting this appeal to you as early as possible by taking the time to research the appeal process on my own as well as contacting Michelle Gallant on any questions while working full-time this summer. I believe that I truly made an effort to obtain all possible information required and I had truly apologize for this delay.

With regards to future plans, I discussed with a Personal Counselor at HCDS the day after the exam that I would be with my family in order to be surrounded with a strong and loving support group. I followed through this plan by going home for a week after that exam to be with my family before coming back to move houses. The counselor agreed that I did not need regular or further counseling but I have continued to deal with this in a positive way by maintaining a strong relationship with family and friends and remaining supportive of my family. This will support my academic goals by allowing me have a support group whenever I feel I would like someone to talk to during the school year. That way, I am able to continue to achieve my academic goals and maintaining strong emotional health. I believe I have taken the necessary steps to make personal adjustments in order to succeed in my future studies and believe that this extenuating circumstance is not reflective of my academic abilities.

Thank you for taking the time and consideration to review this as well as the opportunity to improve this situation academically.

Sincerely,

Shuang Liang