Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

Please accept this appeal to my grade that was awarded to me for ENIN 340 and was taught by Professor Matrix.
ENIN 340 consists of two quizzes and two assignments. Both assignments are worth 35. The assignment which I am hereby appealing is Assignment 2 for which I received a D+. As I have taken many ENIN courses with professor Matrix over the years, I am aware from our personal zoom meetings that to reach the highest grades, she expects students to double, or even triple the amount of work required. I did this as you can see below.

Professor Matrix has also stated that including the citation (SEM) in a bright colour would allow her to identify the course work one has used from class so as to enable her to grade one¿¿s assignment efficiently. I did do this.
In grading Assignment 2, Professor Matrix left me with the feedback of the following: A02 feedback: The submission demonstrates some comprehension of the course material, but it is incomplete, fails to meet one or more key learning objectives, and/or is severely lacking in one or more of the following: research, design, self-reflection, analysis. ¿¿This is a good entrepreneurial pitch for a new start-up product/service, but the assignment required you to prepare an intrapreneurial pitch to an existing company.¿ -Prof Matrix

Instead of pitching my hemp suitcases to an already existing company such as TUMI or The Bay, like the assignment presumably asked, I created my own Hemp company unknowingly. It was, for this reason, I didn¿¿t receive a substantially higher grade, such as the A+ I had received on the previous assignment using all the same amounts of coursework, technique, self-reflection and design minus this mistake. The reason why I did not include my product to be under an already existing company is due to the unclear instructions in the assignment handout.

I completed the assignment understanding that the proposal was for a new company and not an existing company. The reason for doing so is that the instructions to the assignment were unclear. In preparation of this Appeal, I reviewed the instructions once more and note that only one sentence indicates that the pitch has to be to an existing company. But this sentence is not very clear The sentence states ¿¿This assignment requires you to practice your research, analysis, ideation, and design skills to create a case study pitch for an intrapreneurial innovation related to inclusive design (broadly defined ¿¿ also known as universal design) for an organization or company involved in the travel/tourism business.¿ It is not reasonable, and it is unfair to penalize me on the basis of this sentence. A reasonable person reading this would not reasonably infer that the pitch would be to an existing company. The word ¿¿involved¿ is misleading whereas Professor Matrix could have used clearer language as for example using the word ¿¿existing¿ in her instructions as she did in her feedback to me when I questioned my grade. By pitching to a company that was not existing should not have not drastically changed my grade which has always been high As with Professor Matrix to a D. I should not be punished for following instructions that were not clear.

I reviewed what consists of a D grade in the Arts and Science rubric. A D range mark is one that demonstrated some comprehension of material and is lacking research, design, and self-reflection. For my assignment, I went above and beyond and doubled to tripled almost all of the requirements. Instead of writing only three-course takeaways I completed 6. Instead of 3 external citation takeaways, I did 5 quality ones. Instead of one user profile, I created 3 unique and beautiful profiles. Aside from the going above and beyond requirements, I used an abundant amount of quality in-class research within each slide cited with (SEM). I matched my in-course research with the same amount of external research while adding supplementary sections that were not even required such as additional graphics, ¿¿Collecting User Feedback¿ section, and information of responding to such feedback.

While the mistake I made was attributed to unclear instructions, I also feel as if receiving a D+ feels was not at all fair. According to the comment on my marked assignment, I was graded a D+ because the pitch was not to an existing company. However, if I had pitched to an existing company, not much of my analysis or research would¿¿ve changed, if at all. I would¿¿ve changed my introduction to state that this product is a new line from The Bay instead of my new company Hemp co. I believe it is important to understand that I would still include the primary learning objectives based on the module information, such as learning how to speak with people of authority within a company, pinpointing user profiles and selecting the right stakeholders. In fact, I even selected one of my stake holders to be Charlie Clifford, the CEO of Tumi exemplifying collaboration with an existing luggage company. I believe that the most frustrating part of this, is that assignment 1 that I handed in a couple weeks ago was similar in its worth ethic and execution and received an A+.

I am appealing the D+ grade that was given to me for Assignment 2 because clearly there is no foundation for awarding me such a low grade given the work that I carried out on this assignment. I put a tremendous amount of effort in this assignment as I do with all of the ENIN assignments and feel as if this grade was unfair.

In hopes to get a better understanding of the grading breakdown, I contacted professor Matrix through email. She was hostile. Her communication with me was not collegial. Professor Matrix was not willing to dedicate any office hours or book a meeting for outside help of any sorts to discuss the mark breakdown (which I kindly asked for). On one of our email exchanges, I asked her if I could appeal my grade under the department. She responded in a hostile fashion and I felt that she was threatening me. Her reply to my ¿¿Can I appeal this grade under the department¿ was verbatim ¿¿Hello. Certainly. I will go ahead and let them know to expect it, and I¿¿ll explain to the office that the submission actually should have received a failing grade.¿

I was extremely upset by my email exchange with professor Matrix. I am a student with a learning disability and suffer from mental health problems for which I require a service dog in accompanying me at Queens. I assume that Professor Matrix and all professors at Queens are required to create a clear and fully complete assignment handout in hopes to accommodate a diverse student body ¿¿ including those who especially need clear instruction. I am extremely disappointed in the grading of this assignment, the incomplete project handout and especially professor Matrix¿¿s unaccommodating behavior. I apologize for the size of this appeal letter, but I am thoroughly frustrated. I am kindly hoping this assignment could be relooked at. Thank you very much for reading this letter and know that this was written with all due respect.

Sincerely,
Paula Banhara