Prove It!

A student has spoken out against the University’s mitigation and special appeals procedures, telling Vision about his gruelling battle to regain his place at the University after being expelled in the wake of a string of personal tragedies.

Second year started out well for Chris,* an Electronic Engineering student from Vanbrugh. However, things changed in second term, when a close friend from home died, before the pair had a chance to make up following an argument.

“I felt really down, and other friends from home even came up to look after me, some staying for a week. I lost sleep and missed lectures. It was hard to gather my thoughts.”

Despite this, Chris was determined to finish the year. “I don’t like giving up,” he said.

Understandably, this proved difficult. He says he would spend up to seven hours on assignments which would normally take him two or three. With assessed coursework in for week four, he decided to hand in a mitigating circumstances form.

This was when he was met with a shocking demand from the University: he was expected to provide a death certificate as ‘proof’.

An email from his department explained: “If you have lost a parent, grandparent or sibling, you need to provide a death certificate as evidence. If you have lost any other relative, a death certificate and a letter from a third party (such as a church minister) confirming the relationship is required.”
“I’m not related to her,” Chris explained, “and I don’t talk to her family. She was a member of my church.”

The email did not explain what procedures should be followed if the deceased is a friend, and the department never responded to the points he raised about the death certificate.

He decided it would be best to leave the issue and attempt to catch up. “By third term I was nearly back to normal, and I was keeping up with the workload.”

In week five, his father was admitted to hospital for a kidney transplant. Chris’s brother, who was the donor, made a speedy recovery, but his father nearly died twice in the period between weeks six and seven.

“It was especially hard because I was in York when it was happening. My dad has been ill for a long time, but in the past I have been at home when he’s had to go to hospital,” Chris explained.

Consequently, his academic performance again suffered. “I answered two exam questions, if that,” he admits.

As suggested in the department’s first email, Chris contacted his local pastor asking him to write to the University explaining his situation. However, before the letter was sent, he was informed that his department had recommended him for discontinuation; suggesting he should not return next term.

During the academic year and over the summer, Chris contacted a number of university bodies, including the Special Cases Committee, the Undergraduate Admissions Office, his Head of Department, YUSU Welfare and even the Vanbrugh College JCRC.

“I did everything I could. I bothered everyone who had any power.”

It wasn’t until late August, a week after he’d emailed them, that the Special Cases Committee finally informed him they would need an additional six weeks to decide whether he would be allowed back. However, it would take seven weeks for the next contact, at which point Chris was told the final decision would be postponed yet again.

It took another three weeks and three more emails from Chris to get a definitive answer. A week and a half into term he was finally told that he was allowed back – but only as a student on an official leave of absence.

“This was the first time this had been mentioned as an alternative and I was given no explanation as to what it entailed,” he explains.

As a student on a leave of absence he is not expected to attend any lectures but will have to resit his exams. He has still not been told when this will happen.

Chris also had to deal with the practical consequences of the University’s poor handling of the situation. As he is technically on a leave of absence, he has not been offered University accommodation and he couldn’t arrange for private accommodation due to the delay in knowing whether he would be continuing at York. He is currently staying with a friend while looking for a place to live.

Furthermore, he is no longer eligible for a student loan and also feels that he is at an academic disadvantage, with term already having started by the time he was informed that he was allowed back.

Though he was unable to elaborate, YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes disclosed that Chris’ case is “unfortunately not isolated.”

“Due to the often complex nature of mitigating circumstances, the process can take a while, which is of little comfort to some students who can be left in an awkward and unsure position for lengthy periods.”

Hughes labelled the policy of asking for death certificates “insensitive and impersonal to students” arguing that it can cause “undue levels of stress and grief during already stressful periods.”

Vision has also been made aware of a Libyan student who was asked to provide death certificates to prove he had lost friends in the Libyan civil war, in order to get an extension on an assignment. These death certificates were, quite understandably, impossible to acquire.

Chris’s case prompted Vanbrugh Chair Kallum Taylor to lobby the special cases committee on behalf the JCRC. Though the issue is potentially beyond Taylor’s remit, he says he felt he might be able to add some extra weight to the case. “[The Committee] didn’t simply fail to meet their own set deadline for letting him know, they effectively treated the lad with contempt.”

Chris now hopes to pass this year and be able to return as a full-time student next October. However, he does not have much faith that the University will rectify the situation. “I believe they purposefully delayed it so it would be too late for me to be fully readmitted,” Chris maintains.

Asked about his lasting impressions of the procedure, Chris explained that he wouldn’t want to go through it again. If he was to find himself in a similar situation he would, he explained, “just take a leave of absence and come back.”

*Name has been changed to protect the student’s privacy.