Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing a grade in my HLTH 415 class. The grade was for the final presentation in this course for which I was given an F grade, and which counts for 15 of the overall course.

When I contacted my professor, Dr. Lévesque, she indicated by email that this grade was given because I did not appear to master the content of the presentation, was reading off of the slides, was unable to respond to questions and because I did not attend the second part of the class during other presentations. Upon further inquiry by me, she stated that, 'nervousness was not penalized. You lost much of your marks for the Final Presentation component by leaving the class that you were expected to attend'.

Upon reflection, it is difficult to understand or accept an F grade. While I was nervous during the presentation, I contributed significantly to the overall project and, I think, did a good job in the presentation. It should be noted that there was no scoring rubric communicated to us in advance of this assignment and, on that basis, it does not seem fair to lose marks for:

(1) Reading from the slides, which I may have done because I was nervous; and
(2) Not answering questions when none were directed to me. I believe our group received two questions that were answered by other group members, though I could have added to their responses had I known we were being graded on this.

More fundamentally, I was in fact not aware that leaving class early, after our group's presentation, would lead to a failing mark, as is now stated by Dr. Lévesque to be the case.

While Dr. Lévesque states that the requirement to remain for the other presentations was mentioned in class, I did not hear that and truly was not aware of this. It should be noted that I have been diagnosed by a psychologist, Victoria Metzger, with processing speed issues, which means that I am slow when it comes to processing and understanding verbal instructions in class. My report from Dr. Metzger is on file with the university and I receive certain accommodations as a result. My letter of accommodation has been submitted along with this appeal.

Because of my issue with processing speed, it is important for me to have instructions in writing as I tend to miss some information when it is communicated verbally. I can provide the report from Dr. Metzger if necessary.

I would also note that other students seemed to be unaware of the requirement to remain in class for other presentations: I saw others leave the class early as well and, based on our discussion at the time, they were clearly unaware that we would be penalized for doing so.

I am hoping that this appeal might result in me being graded on what my mark would have been had I not left the class early. Although it is no excuse, I made a judgment call to leave the class early so that I could pack and catch the train to go home and did not at all mean to come across as disrespectful to Dr. Lévesque or the other groups who were presenting after me. If I had known that it was expected that I remain in class, I most definitely would have done so and would have made the necessary arrangements to make that happen.

The purpose of our project was to create a promotional video for The Mess Studio, a local community support group, and I spent approximately 10-12 hours editing and finalizing the video for our group's presentation. I wanted The Mess to have something that they would be proud to show when trying to promote their organization and felt that this aspect of my contribution was somewhat overlooked in my grade, given Dr. Lévesque's comments about my presentation (see above). It should be noted that about half of our presentation involved showing the promotional video to the class, which was largely my work.

This letter is not at all intended to call into question my professor's ability to grade students fairly. I genuinely enjoyed my experience in her class and felt that I learned a lot from the course as well as from The Mess Studio project. I regret that she may have been left with an impression that I failed to take this assignment seriously or to apply myself. I would like to extend an apology to Dr. Levesque for leaving the presentation class early.

Sincerely,

Sydney Caza