Petition Letter
To whom it may concern,
I am petitioning this and requesting credit standing in this course as I had received a failing grade in my chemistry class this year which is a prerequisite for one of my other classes that I did very well in. I emailed my professor explaining my reasons for believing that I deserved to still pass which he empathized with and said he would look into one of the issues. In the meantime, he encouraged me to reach out to take these certain actions.
For background, I have academic accommodations for my anxiety in exams which allows me certain allowances one of which is to split my exam into two sections over two days. This is meant to help me manage my occasional panic attacks. In my final chemistry exam on April 9&10 we were to receive formulas that we would need for the exam. This was distributed on the 9th at 8:30 am in Mitchell hall 300B, however the person presiding our exam forgot to give out one of the important formulas. Five minutes before my exam finished, he explained there was a missing formula and gave it out. Because my exam was split, I didn't have any time to apply this formula to my exam. Not only is it incredibly unfair that I didn't get to use the missing formula but it put me at a huge disadvantage because of my disability when it was supposed to help me. As you can imagine this sent me into a massive episode that my mother had to help me deal with to calm down. This definitely did not set me up for success in studying for the second portion of the exam on the 10th or to feel confident going into it. This situation set me up for failure.
Another extremely important reason for my argument of unfairness is because of the TA strike. The strike caused all of our labs and tutorials being cancelled therefore we did not have a chance to write or hand in our lab reports for marks, leaving my entire grade to be marked on a couple of quizzes, the final exam which I already struggle with greatly, and 2 assignments. Additionally, these more intimate learning settings are where I learn best, so removing them was a major disadvantage for me. Exams are also my largest weakness due to my anxiety and so having most of my grade reliant on this when all these other circumstances have arisen is hugely unfair. I believe that under the definition of equitable and fairness, my situations fall under both. Not receiving the exam formula to apply to the exam because mine was split into 2 sections to help my disability ended up completely taking me out of an equal playing field. It ended up being a massive disadvantage as I had no time to go back to the beginning of the exam to apply the formula (both unfair and inequitable).
Clearly the TA strike caused issues for everyone however because of my need for small study areas and hands on learning it was another challenge that felt like an uphill battle. There were no conditions put in place to help me to deal with these unprecedented changes. I struggled throughout the second semester to try and basically self-learn in this course.
Please note the rest of my grades this semester are very good and not typical for me to do poorly unless I am dealing with extenuating circumstances. My appeal to you and the university is 100% based on what I feel I dealt with and why it was so incredibly unfair to me.
In addition, I have followed up with my professor in this course 3 different times whom also expressed the unfairness of the formula sheet not being distributed and said he would look into it further, but have not heard back from him as of today.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jamie Mitchell
20386125
I am petitioning this and requesting credit standing in this course as I had received a failing grade in my chemistry class this year which is a prerequisite for one of my other classes that I did very well in. I emailed my professor explaining my reasons for believing that I deserved to still pass which he empathized with and said he would look into one of the issues. In the meantime, he encouraged me to reach out to take these certain actions.
For background, I have academic accommodations for my anxiety in exams which allows me certain allowances one of which is to split my exam into two sections over two days. This is meant to help me manage my occasional panic attacks. In my final chemistry exam on April 9&10 we were to receive formulas that we would need for the exam. This was distributed on the 9th at 8:30 am in Mitchell hall 300B, however the person presiding our exam forgot to give out one of the important formulas. Five minutes before my exam finished, he explained there was a missing formula and gave it out. Because my exam was split, I didn't have any time to apply this formula to my exam. Not only is it incredibly unfair that I didn't get to use the missing formula but it put me at a huge disadvantage because of my disability when it was supposed to help me. As you can imagine this sent me into a massive episode that my mother had to help me deal with to calm down. This definitely did not set me up for success in studying for the second portion of the exam on the 10th or to feel confident going into it. This situation set me up for failure.
Another extremely important reason for my argument of unfairness is because of the TA strike. The strike caused all of our labs and tutorials being cancelled therefore we did not have a chance to write or hand in our lab reports for marks, leaving my entire grade to be marked on a couple of quizzes, the final exam which I already struggle with greatly, and 2 assignments. Additionally, these more intimate learning settings are where I learn best, so removing them was a major disadvantage for me. Exams are also my largest weakness due to my anxiety and so having most of my grade reliant on this when all these other circumstances have arisen is hugely unfair. I believe that under the definition of equitable and fairness, my situations fall under both. Not receiving the exam formula to apply to the exam because mine was split into 2 sections to help my disability ended up completely taking me out of an equal playing field. It ended up being a massive disadvantage as I had no time to go back to the beginning of the exam to apply the formula (both unfair and inequitable).
Clearly the TA strike caused issues for everyone however because of my need for small study areas and hands on learning it was another challenge that felt like an uphill battle. There were no conditions put in place to help me to deal with these unprecedented changes. I struggled throughout the second semester to try and basically self-learn in this course.
Please note the rest of my grades this semester are very good and not typical for me to do poorly unless I am dealing with extenuating circumstances. My appeal to you and the university is 100% based on what I feel I dealt with and why it was so incredibly unfair to me.
In addition, I have followed up with my professor in this course 3 different times whom also expressed the unfairness of the formula sheet not being distributed and said he would look into it further, but have not heard back from him as of today.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jamie Mitchell
20386125