Decision Letter
Appeal Number: 3915
Decision Date: November 6, 2017
Associate Dean: Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Student Name: Alan Townshend-Carter
Student Email: townshend@protonmail.com
Dear Mr. Townshend-Carter:
I have carefully considered your request to have your appeal heard after the one-term timeline for submission. After reviewing your file I have decided the following:
I will waive the deadline and allow you to drop your failed courses from the 2016/17 academic year (CLST 311, CLST 340 from Fall 2016 and CLST 203, CLST 314 and CLST 343 from Winter term 2017). This will, in turn, remove the €œRequired to Withdraw for a Minimum of Three Years€ ruling from your transcript. Once these courses are dropped, your cumulative GPA will be approximately 1.45. Once you have completed a minimum of 18.0 units of further courses, your academic record will be assessed again. If your GPA is below 1.60 at the time of this assessment, you will be required to withdraw for a minimum of three years. I therefore strongly caution you not to take any further courses until you have fully recovered and you are healthy enough to successfully complete the remaining courses for your degree.
I must however, deny your request to waive the deadline to appeal courses from earlier terms (2012-2016).
The appeal timeline is in place to give students sufficient time to respond to an academic decision. The one-term timeline offers students time to seek academic counseling, to write up and submit an appeal, and to collect the supporting documents necessary to the appeal. Further, the appeal timeline is in place to ensure that decision making takes place in a timely manner, allowing students to continue in their academic programs without ongoing concern for unresolved matters.
To consider appeals outside these timelines can easily compromise fair decision making. The interested parties and the original contexts within which the matter originated may not be available. Over time, instructors, course content, the norms of evaluating course materials, and program structures may and generally do change. Furthermore, the supporting documents necessary to any appeal may no longer be available or their credibility may more easily come into question (instructors are required to retain class records for one year only.) Therefore, the inability to reconstruct accurately the circumstances leading to the original matter under appeal can compromise the decision-making process.
Exceptions to this regulation can only be granted in cases where extenuating circumstances beyond a student's control render the student unable to appeal within the specified timeline. The student must be able to show that the extenuating circumstances were ongoing. The student must also be able to demonstrate that these circumstances prevented the student from acting between the time the original decision was received and the time at which the appeal was eventually initiated. Appeals of the regulation governing the timeline for appeals must be submitted in writing. An appeal of this type should include a presentation of the specific reasons for a delay and should include any document which support the reasons for delay.
While I understand that you have had some very challenging circumstances to overcome during your time at Queen€™s and I am sympathetic to those difficulties, your appeal ultimately did not supply enough evidence to show that your circumstances directly prevented you from addressing your past grades until now. It is clear that you wish to graduate as soon as possible so you can move forward in your military career but based on the information presented in your letter and in your file, I unfortunately cannot justify waiving the appeal deadline so you can change your academic record any further than the past academic year.
If you wish to appeal the Associate Dean€™s decision to the Board of Studies, you must submit an appeal to the Board of Studies within 21 days of the date this decision was sent. Guidelines for appealing to the Board of Studies and the appeal form can be found at: http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/students-at-queens/academic-appeals (click on €œBoard of Studies€) Do not use the on-line application for this process. You may contact Mr. Harry Smith, Office of the Ombudsman for advice on matters of procedure and on obtaining a representative. His office is located in room 421 Robert Sutherland Hall and he can be reached by phone (533-6495) or e-mail (ombuds@queensu.ca).
Sincerely,
Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Associate Dean (Studies)
06337630Townshend-Carter4
Decision Date: November 6, 2017
Associate Dean: Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Student Name: Alan Townshend-Carter
Student Email: townshend@protonmail.com
Dear Mr. Townshend-Carter:
I have carefully considered your request to have your appeal heard after the one-term timeline for submission. After reviewing your file I have decided the following:
I will waive the deadline and allow you to drop your failed courses from the 2016/17 academic year (CLST 311, CLST 340 from Fall 2016 and CLST 203, CLST 314 and CLST 343 from Winter term 2017). This will, in turn, remove the €œRequired to Withdraw for a Minimum of Three Years€ ruling from your transcript. Once these courses are dropped, your cumulative GPA will be approximately 1.45. Once you have completed a minimum of 18.0 units of further courses, your academic record will be assessed again. If your GPA is below 1.60 at the time of this assessment, you will be required to withdraw for a minimum of three years. I therefore strongly caution you not to take any further courses until you have fully recovered and you are healthy enough to successfully complete the remaining courses for your degree.
I must however, deny your request to waive the deadline to appeal courses from earlier terms (2012-2016).
The appeal timeline is in place to give students sufficient time to respond to an academic decision. The one-term timeline offers students time to seek academic counseling, to write up and submit an appeal, and to collect the supporting documents necessary to the appeal. Further, the appeal timeline is in place to ensure that decision making takes place in a timely manner, allowing students to continue in their academic programs without ongoing concern for unresolved matters.
To consider appeals outside these timelines can easily compromise fair decision making. The interested parties and the original contexts within which the matter originated may not be available. Over time, instructors, course content, the norms of evaluating course materials, and program structures may and generally do change. Furthermore, the supporting documents necessary to any appeal may no longer be available or their credibility may more easily come into question (instructors are required to retain class records for one year only.) Therefore, the inability to reconstruct accurately the circumstances leading to the original matter under appeal can compromise the decision-making process.
Exceptions to this regulation can only be granted in cases where extenuating circumstances beyond a student's control render the student unable to appeal within the specified timeline. The student must be able to show that the extenuating circumstances were ongoing. The student must also be able to demonstrate that these circumstances prevented the student from acting between the time the original decision was received and the time at which the appeal was eventually initiated. Appeals of the regulation governing the timeline for appeals must be submitted in writing. An appeal of this type should include a presentation of the specific reasons for a delay and should include any document which support the reasons for delay.
While I understand that you have had some very challenging circumstances to overcome during your time at Queen€™s and I am sympathetic to those difficulties, your appeal ultimately did not supply enough evidence to show that your circumstances directly prevented you from addressing your past grades until now. It is clear that you wish to graduate as soon as possible so you can move forward in your military career but based on the information presented in your letter and in your file, I unfortunately cannot justify waiving the appeal deadline so you can change your academic record any further than the past academic year.
If you wish to appeal the Associate Dean€™s decision to the Board of Studies, you must submit an appeal to the Board of Studies within 21 days of the date this decision was sent. Guidelines for appealing to the Board of Studies and the appeal form can be found at: http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/students-at-queens/academic-appeals (click on €œBoard of Studies€) Do not use the on-line application for this process. You may contact Mr. Harry Smith, Office of the Ombudsman for advice on matters of procedure and on obtaining a representative. His office is located in room 421 Robert Sutherland Hall and he can be reached by phone (533-6495) or e-mail (ombuds@queensu.ca).
Sincerely,
Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Associate Dean (Studies)
06337630Townshend-Carter4
Generated November 6, 2017 at 1:38:23 PM.