Im a non-traditional student who receives academic accommodations for ADHD, Generalized Anxiety, Ankylosing Spondylitis, C-PTSD, and i am high-functioning autistic. The list of accommodations I receive include extended due dates, relaxed attendance, in-class note takers, and test taking in a distraction free environment.
I am a fifth year senior graduating this fall. Ive had the accommodations in place every semester since the beginning of my second year at my university and in general have had no trouble from any of my profs or instructors. At the beginning of each new semester, I talk with each of them about what these accommodations mean and what each of us expect in way of class participation and so forth. I do not take advantage of the accommodations or the good graces of the profs and instructors.
This semester however I have been having an ongoing issue with the instructor of an Oral Interpretation course almost from day one. So much so that we have already had a meeting(the first ever for me) with the Office of Disability Services on campus. During the meeting, it came to light that the instructor had forgotten to grade one of only two assignments we had up to that point. She has been harassing me with failing the course by sending me emails and saying condescending things to me in class.
The first performance she graded exceptionally low, which I was somewhat stymied by since the assignment was only to pick a poem and read in front of the class. No problem, since I am not shy, and I am both an expressive and well-spoken individual. My selected poem fit into the guidelines of the assignment. Day of presentation, I volunteered to go first. The other students in the class are a varied group, some who are learning English as a second language, some who are not at a college reading level yet and some who are average neurotypical students.
During our meeting, the instructor admitted to forgetting to grade the second performance at all. She intimated that she didn't like the content of my first performance, which was not listed in the rubric anywhere. During the meeting, when she admitted to forgetting to grade the second performance, she immediately graded the performance and gave it the same very low grade she had given me for the first performance.
The meeting concluded with her suggesting that I drop the class because even if I made a 100 on every performance left, I still wouldn't make higher than a D, even though there were still four more performances as well as a self-evaluation of 100 points left in the semester.
I left the meeting feeling like the mediator from the ODS was more on the side of the instructor. When I got home, I started to think about things and realized that the instructor had been harassing me about failing her class when she actually hadn't even graded the second performance at that point, nor had she remembered that fact until the meeting.
I have not been back to the class since the meeting. We are past the drop class date. My anxiety about the whole ordeal has been off the charts, causing undue stress. I did email her and ask for clarification about her scoring the second performance the exact same as the first even though it had been three weeks since I had given the performance and she had forgotten to score it at all until the meeting. She replied with the most hateful, condescending email about my ego, which is actually laughable because I don't feel like my ego is anywhere near the problem. I willing admitted that my performance probably wasn't the greatest, but neither was anyone else's as it was the first performance of the semester. I will say that my reading skills are better than some of the other students but only because English is my native language and I am a writer, and have held various positions over the years that directly required both reading and writing skills. That being said, I am not an actress. I don't do sound effects or pantomime physical activities, neither did any of the other students. Imo, we were all pretty bland.
I alleged that she graded me unfairly and her response was that I couldn't prove that.
My question to y'all is should I escalate this situation to the Department Chair? I feel that I've been treated unfairly and there's no way I'll pass the class now. Her harassment of me about failing her class when she is the one who forgot to grade a performance has caused anxiety that prevents me from attending class. I feel like she has caused a hostile environment and I honestly don't know what to do. Any advice will be helpful. Thanks in advance for reading all of the above. I know it's a long read, so thank you.