Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Jordan Shear, and I am writing to appeal a grade received on coursework in PHYS P20. I received a 56 on a paper worth 40 of the final grade, and I do not believe that this grade should stand.

The paper was due on March 18th, and unfortunately, I suffer from chronic pain due to a previous incident where I broke both my patella's. Leading up to the due date, this pain returned to a more severe extent than it had for a long while. As I have a very low pain tolerance this chronic pain leads to severely impairing my mental health, leading to bouts of depression.

After realizing that I am not able to complete any academic requirements given this pain (both physical and mental), I decided to submit a brief absence form. I submit the form on March 18th, 2:46 AM. I recognize the delayed nature of submitting the form, however, I know that regulations stipulate that I have up to 48 hours after the deadline to submit a brief absence form. In my current condition, I recognized that I should focus on getting better and resting and submit the form later. That night, I wasn't able to sleep well (due to the chronic pain) and recognizing I had nothing better to do, I decided to submit the form in the middle of the night.

After submitting the form, I eventually fell asleep, and upon waking up the morning of March 18th, received an email from Dr. Boris Castel informing me that the course website states that if you are not well on the 17th, you should submit what you have and that the brief absence form is not accepted. Unfortunately, I didn't see this email until March 19th, as I was under the impression that my brief absence form would be respected and was merely focusing on getting better. I was penalized further for submitting the assignment late, which I will explain in more detail below.

I understand the reluctance of the professor to refuse the brief absence on March 18th, given the proximity of St. Patrick's Day and potential abuse of the form. However, I feel that the Professor's policy is penalizing students who have conditions similar to mine (or who develop new conditions) because of potential dishonest students.

I do not find this fair -- I did not go out on St. Patrick's day, and the refusal to accept the brief absence form I believe is not something the Professor should do. The university senate has passed a protocol for short-term academic consideration for students in the faculty of arts and science as of November 2017, and it specifically mentions that this is policy that applies to all arts and science classes. I do not believe the Professor is within his rights to override this policy. On page 7 of the document, it specifically states that the professor must provide reasonable academic consideration, while maintain essential academic requirements and standards. I thoroughly believe that I was not given reasonable academic consideration.

When the Professor told me to submit what I had completed, I initially thought that he would alter the grading rubric to reflect my circumstances. For example, reducing the required word count, or reducing the expectations of the assignment in general. It is clear this was not done, and the mark assigned was as if I had not requested any academic accommodations.

I'd also like to address that I was penalized an additional 5 due to submitting the assignment late. I submit the assignment late because after submitting the brief absence form, I stayed off my e-mail and focused on getting better, casting aside all other academic requirements of me. I understand that I should have checked my email, but I had assumed that my brief absence would have been accepted (because the policy specifically states that the brief absence form is official documentation), and so I did not realize until March 19th (one day after the due date) that I had to submit my assignment in its current form.

This compounds the fact that my request for academic accommodations was completely disregarded due to the policy that the Professor has in place for the course. Again, I understand where his class policy is coming from, however, I do not believe it is fair, just, or in accordance with faculty policy.

Given the fact that this grade represents 40 of my final mark, and I am an otherwise high performing student, the impact on my final mark and my overall GPA cannot be understated. The mark of 56 has extenuating circumstances surrounding it (which I have detailed above), and therefore, I request that this assignment does not impact my final grade and that the 40 is reweighted towards the other assignment I have already completed or towards the final exam.

Unfortunately I have left Kingston for the summer and will, therefore, will be unable to meet in person, however, I am more than happy to arrange a phone or Skype call and we can discuss this further.

Thank you so much for your time,
Jordan