Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 9207
Submitted: May 24, 2022 at 4:43:52 PM
First Name: Courtney
Last Name: Edgar
Student Number: 20194257
Email: 19ce1@queensu.ca
Degree Program: Online - non degree continuing to enter English
Plan: ENGL
Level of Study: 1
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Drop a course after the academic deadline
Code: ENGL 222
Term: Summer
Year: 2021
Petition Category: Drop a course after the academic deadline
Code: ENIN 340
Term: Summer
Year: 2021
Petition Category: Drop a course after the academic deadline
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,
I am writing to appeal the two F grades that I received last summer session in ENGL222 and ENIN340, on the grounds that during Covid-19 there was a period of weeks where work-from-home orders caused technical issues, thereby creating a series of extreme and unusual navigational obstacles online which rendered the task of dropping my courses on time impossible.
You will note these are not courses I ??failed,? but rather never actually attended ?? mostly because I could not log in at all to my SOLUS account.
The technical issue began as an error message that -even when it was finally resolved- was never really explained to me. The representative seemed perplexed about why I was getting it too. It made me unable to log into SOLUS. All the efforts that I made around the series of subsequent obstacles, such as the dropped calls, wrong departments I was sent to, etc in order to try and try and try to drop the courses by the deadline are all documented in Queens?? systems. You can find one of my IT Service Desk support files under INC0046745, and other emails and phone call records with a variety of departments over the weeks around the course drop deadline in Summer 2021. Most were phone calls, and the most common problem was being transferred to a new person, waiting on hold for 20-45 minutes, and to have the call dropped and have to start over.
I will explain that I??ve had clinical depression and anxiety most of my life, PTSD from intense/violent childhood trauma, chronic migraine with aura, and am likely neurodivergent ?? though not officially diagnosed ?? which means that when I encounter obstacle upon obstacle upon obstacle for multiple days or weeks (especially when it has enormous consequences such as a loss of a lot of money, or an F on my student record despite my efforts), it triggers a migraine flare-up which, besides being painful, also causes my vision to get scintillating ??floaters? which blocks my capacity to read or write for up to a few hours, and prompts nausea, as well as causes chronic back and neck pain. So, as you can see, after spending multiple days meeting comms roadblocks, and being pointed to departmental detours/sent to wrong departments, just for calls to also drop there, I would start to feel ill and have to close my laptop to start again another day.
The fact is these compounding technical issues and confused customer service reps, dropped calls, at that time were entirely the reasons I could not drop my courses on time. The academic advisor I spoke to also agreed with me, that this seems like a situation that should be appealed. The technical infrastructure chaos around Covid-19 is to blame, like many businesses struggling to shift into the work-from-home era, with new phone systems.
Thank you for understanding that I am not to blame for these two F??s. I absolutely did not open a single page of either course in order to have ??failed? either course. I couldn??t have done so because I couldn??t log in at the time they started. If you??re wondering why it??s been about a year now since this occurred, that??s because I was so upset and frustrated by the red tape and technical issues at Queens, which also cost me over 1,200 of lost tuition money, that it deeply depressed me, prompting me to reconsider if I should ever get an undergrad degree. It has taken me this long to have the strength to begin this additional lengthy red-tape process ?? the appeal- and to re-pivot from my pivot to try this again.
Moving forward, I am hoping that with improved technical support and customer service systems in place due to enough time passing in this pandemic, when any issues arise, it may be easier to avoid these technical logistical difficulties. I am also under much less stress now myself, ready to get back to my academics, since I am no longer living in the Canadian North (Nunavut), no longer planning a huge cross country move, no longer impacted by the anxieties of a pandemic, no longer working as a social issues newspaper reporter about pretty traumatic and dark topics, no longer burnt out, and have had many months now of recuperating in Quebec, where I have been working in much happier, cozier writing niches and situations.
Please reconsider those F??s,
Courtney Edgar
Freelance Journalist & Writer
Courtney.jean.edgar@gmail.com
I am writing to appeal the two F grades that I received last summer session in ENGL222 and ENIN340, on the grounds that during Covid-19 there was a period of weeks where work-from-home orders caused technical issues, thereby creating a series of extreme and unusual navigational obstacles online which rendered the task of dropping my courses on time impossible.
You will note these are not courses I ??failed,? but rather never actually attended ?? mostly because I could not log in at all to my SOLUS account.
The technical issue began as an error message that -even when it was finally resolved- was never really explained to me. The representative seemed perplexed about why I was getting it too. It made me unable to log into SOLUS. All the efforts that I made around the series of subsequent obstacles, such as the dropped calls, wrong departments I was sent to, etc in order to try and try and try to drop the courses by the deadline are all documented in Queens?? systems. You can find one of my IT Service Desk support files under INC0046745, and other emails and phone call records with a variety of departments over the weeks around the course drop deadline in Summer 2021. Most were phone calls, and the most common problem was being transferred to a new person, waiting on hold for 20-45 minutes, and to have the call dropped and have to start over.
I will explain that I??ve had clinical depression and anxiety most of my life, PTSD from intense/violent childhood trauma, chronic migraine with aura, and am likely neurodivergent ?? though not officially diagnosed ?? which means that when I encounter obstacle upon obstacle upon obstacle for multiple days or weeks (especially when it has enormous consequences such as a loss of a lot of money, or an F on my student record despite my efforts), it triggers a migraine flare-up which, besides being painful, also causes my vision to get scintillating ??floaters? which blocks my capacity to read or write for up to a few hours, and prompts nausea, as well as causes chronic back and neck pain. So, as you can see, after spending multiple days meeting comms roadblocks, and being pointed to departmental detours/sent to wrong departments, just for calls to also drop there, I would start to feel ill and have to close my laptop to start again another day.
The fact is these compounding technical issues and confused customer service reps, dropped calls, at that time were entirely the reasons I could not drop my courses on time. The academic advisor I spoke to also agreed with me, that this seems like a situation that should be appealed. The technical infrastructure chaos around Covid-19 is to blame, like many businesses struggling to shift into the work-from-home era, with new phone systems.
Thank you for understanding that I am not to blame for these two F??s. I absolutely did not open a single page of either course in order to have ??failed? either course. I couldn??t have done so because I couldn??t log in at the time they started. If you??re wondering why it??s been about a year now since this occurred, that??s because I was so upset and frustrated by the red tape and technical issues at Queens, which also cost me over 1,200 of lost tuition money, that it deeply depressed me, prompting me to reconsider if I should ever get an undergrad degree. It has taken me this long to have the strength to begin this additional lengthy red-tape process ?? the appeal- and to re-pivot from my pivot to try this again.
Moving forward, I am hoping that with improved technical support and customer service systems in place due to enough time passing in this pandemic, when any issues arise, it may be easier to avoid these technical logistical difficulties. I am also under much less stress now myself, ready to get back to my academics, since I am no longer living in the Canadian North (Nunavut), no longer planning a huge cross country move, no longer impacted by the anxieties of a pandemic, no longer working as a social issues newspaper reporter about pretty traumatic and dark topics, no longer burnt out, and have had many months now of recuperating in Quebec, where I have been working in much happier, cozier writing niches and situations.
Please reconsider those F??s,
Courtney Edgar
Freelance Journalist & Writer
Courtney.jean.edgar@gmail.com
Documentation
Professional Letter: 20194257.docx