Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean:

My name is Mollie Milchberg, I am an entering fifth year student hoping to complete my credits in the fall semester. I was a student in Spanish 111 this summer and unfortunately performed badly on the final exam. I immediately reached out to Professor Palomares-Salas who suggested that I now reach out to your office for some support and guidance. This is a very difficult email to write as I consider myself a hard working and conscientious student who cares a lot about my work and performance. During the summer term I worked diligently on the course: completed a majority of the online MindMap exercises, made a flash card for every new word, and attempted numerous times to reach out to classmates for the group assignments. Furthermore, I performed reasonably well on the two online tests throughout the term. The fact that this was an online (ASO) language class was a challenge, it??s clearly not the best way to learn a language

When I went into the final, I realized that this was the first in-person exam I had taken in 3 years, since my third semester at Queen??s. I was overwhelmed. Contributing to this was the challenge that this was an entirely online class until the final exam which required pencil and paper and a completely different environment in which to work. The final exam was nothing like what we had been seeing in the textbooks or in the other evaluations throughout the term. On the previous tests much of the translating was from Spanish to English, when I was in the exam hall I became quite flustered and frustrated as the exam was a vastly different format that I had seen previously, I struggled to translate from English to Spanish. I knew immediately that I had not performed well.

As I told Professor Palomares-Salas, in addition to taking this course and another online ASO class during the summer, I was a full-time counselor at the ASUS summer camp. I worked full days from Monday - Friday, from the beginning of July to the middle of August with children attending the camp. Even with this full-time position I was able to complete the other course and do much of the work required for Spanish. Both my professors understood that I was carrying this load and when possible were able to adjust deadlines for me. I greatly appreciated this flexibility but I have certainly learned that taking summer classes really can??t be done effectively while working a full-time job. While my performance this summer is not what I have come to expect of myself, I do believe I deserve a chance to complete this course with full credit. This is the first time as a Queen??s student where I have had to ask for special consideration. I have taken advantage of Professor office hours and other campus resources when I??ve needed help with my work but at this particular moment, I am appealing to Queen??s for some extra support and compassion.

I am hoping to graduate from Queen??s at the end of the Fall, 2022, term. At the suggestion of I don??t know what the next steps might be to complete this class. I am appealing to you for a credit standing grade for this class.

Thank you for your time,
Mollie Milchberg
20046929