Decision Letter
Appeal Number: 4014
Decision Date: February 20, 2018
Associate Dean: Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Student Name: Mahad Abdirahman
Student Email: 14ma88@queensu.ca
Course: BIOL 205
Term: Fall
Year: 2017
Category: Request credit (CR) standing in a course or courses
Instructor: Professor Bendena
Dear Mr. Abdirahman:
I have carefully considered your appeal to receive Credit standing in BIOL 205 (F 2017). After reviewing your file I have decided to deny your request.
As you know, Academic Regulation 10.3.2. states that, Credit standing in a course is reserved for situations in which a student, who has completed and passed all of the work of the course including the final examination, but because of illness or other extenuating circumstances beyond their control, earned a substantially lower grade than might have been expected, normally a grade of C or lower€. Credit standing is only granted in cases where there are well documented and unforeseen extenuating circumstances outside of a student€™s control. The integrity of Arts and Science transcripts in general would be greatly diminished if the Faculty were to effect changes to students€™ records without clear and compelling documentation indicating that the student€™s performance was significantly compromised by extenuating circumstances beyond his or her control.
Extenuating circumstances normally involve a significant physical or psychological event that is beyond your control and debilitating to your overall academic performance. Additionally, these kinds of extraordinary situations are normally supported by documentation from a professional.
Upper year students are expected to be able to gauge their academic performance and make decisions to request academic consideration or drop a class by the Week 8 deadline (November 3, 2017 in this case). It appears that you were dealing with these family issues in October but you chose to continue in BIOL 205 past the drop deadline and did not contact your instructor to request any accommodation and you did not submit a request for any academic consideration through the online portal. In viewing your transcript, your grades in science range from B- to D and the information from Dr. Bendena indicates that your performance on the final exam (and the time your family issues occurred) was slightly below your performance on the midterm exam. The overall pattern of your grades as well as your component grades in BIOL 205 do not support the timeline of your extenuating circumstances and there is no evidence to suggest that your midterm performance was lower than your usual or expected performance in this class.
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)
10182114Abdirahman2
Decision Date: February 20, 2018
Associate Dean: Jill Atkinson, Ph.D.
Student Name: Mahad Abdirahman
Student Email: 14ma88@queensu.ca
Course: BIOL 205
Term: Fall
Year: 2017
Category: Request credit (CR) standing in a course or courses
Instructor: Professor Bendena
Dear Mr. Abdirahman:
I have carefully considered your appeal to receive Credit standing in BIOL 205 (F 2017). After reviewing your file I have decided to deny your request.
As you know, Academic Regulation 10.3.2. states that, Credit standing in a course is reserved for situations in which a student, who has completed and passed all of the work of the course including the final examination, but because of illness or other extenuating circumstances beyond their control, earned a substantially lower grade than might have been expected, normally a grade of C or lower€. Credit standing is only granted in cases where there are well documented and unforeseen extenuating circumstances outside of a student€™s control. The integrity of Arts and Science transcripts in general would be greatly diminished if the Faculty were to effect changes to students€™ records without clear and compelling documentation indicating that the student€™s performance was significantly compromised by extenuating circumstances beyond his or her control.
Extenuating circumstances normally involve a significant physical or psychological event that is beyond your control and debilitating to your overall academic performance. Additionally, these kinds of extraordinary situations are normally supported by documentation from a professional.
Upper year students are expected to be able to gauge their academic performance and make decisions to request academic consideration or drop a class by the Week 8 deadline (November 3, 2017 in this case). It appears that you were dealing with these family issues in October but you chose to continue in BIOL 205 past the drop deadline and did not contact your instructor to request any accommodation and you did not submit a request for any academic consideration through the online portal. In viewing your transcript, your grades in science range from B- to D and the information from Dr. Bendena indicates that your performance on the final exam (and the time your family issues occurred) was slightly below your performance on the midterm exam. The overall pattern of your grades as well as your component grades in BIOL 205 do not support the timeline of your extenuating circumstances and there is no evidence to suggest that your midterm performance was lower than your usual or expected performance in this class.
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)
10182114Abdirahman2
Generated February 20, 2018 at 9:46:54 AM.