Date:
July 4, 2024
Parties:
S.R.K v. Toronto School of Theology
Hearing Date:
April 11, 2024
Academic Appeal Committee Members:
Sara Faherty, Chair
Professor Sotirios Damouras, Faculty Governor
Nelson Lee, Student Governor
Hearing Secretary:
Carmelle Salomon-Labbé, Associate Director, Office of Appeals, Discipline and Faculty Grievances
APPEARANCES:
FOR THE TORONTO SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY:
Catherine Fan, Paliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP
FOR THE STUDENT APELLANT:
The Student
The Student filed two appeals from a decision made by the Toronto School of Theology Academic Appeals Committee (“TST-AAC”) that were heard together. The TST-AAC denied both appeals. The Student appeals and requests that the Committee reinstate them in the Toronto School of Theology (“TST”) ThD Program, notwithstanding their failing grades on the ThD Program Comprehensive exams. The Student’s appeal raised a myriad of issues including the Student’s perception of bias against them, whether the Student was appropriately accommodated for bereavement and disabilities, procedural misunderstandings about exam registration and timing, changes in the composition of their supervisory committee, and the fact that the Student felt stress and intimidation during the oral defence of one of the ThD program’s compulsory Comprehensive Examinations. Several of these issues had been brought before the Committee and decided in two previous decisions.
The Student first registered at the TST in September of 2012, and completed their course work in 2015. The Student was granted a leave of absence for the 2017-2018 academic year and returned to the TST in September of 2018. The Student was told by the Division that no further extensions or leaves would be made available to the Student and that the Student would be required to write all three of their Comprehensive Examinations (specialization, breadth, and analytic) by the end of August 2019. The Student did not receive a passing mark on any of the Comprehensive Examinations. The Committee decided in an earlier decision (Report 413) that the Student should be permitted to orally defend their Analytic Exam, and if that oral defence resulted in raising the mark on that exam to a passing mark, then the Student would be permitted to rewrite the remaining exams and to continue in the ThD Program. The Student was not successful in their oral defence but objected to the administration of the oral defence and appealed again to the Committee. The Senior Chair of the Committee, in Report 421, found that the remedy earlier granted by the Committee had been implemented in accordance with the terms as set forth in Report 413.
The Committee concluded, based on its prior decisions in Reports 413 and 421, that the TST accommodated the Student’s requests up until the point of impairing the integrity of the oral defence, and that the TST’s actions to protect academic integrity were neither unfair nor unreasonable.
The Committee further concluded that there were no grounds on which it could retroactively dismiss the Student’s grades on the Comprehensive Exams and rejected the Student’s submission – not raised in the two earlier appeals – that the exams were unjust, and that the Student’s deficient performance should therefore be disregarded in assessing whether the Student should be reinstated in the program.
The Committee dismissed the appeal.