Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

New Information: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Megan Townsend and I am currently in my third year at Queens. I am petitioning to receive approval of a late course drop for my SPAN 111 course with Dr. Joanne Rotermundt-de la Parra.

Recently I have decided to change my academic path and switch from receiving a BAH in LLCU (Language, literature, and cultural studies) to receiving a BA in EMPR (Employment Relations). This is something that I have been meaning to do for a while, however, at the beginning of this semester my long-term boyfriend and I broke up which affected my schooling and focus. The only reason I signed up for this course was because a certain amount of different languages is needed to complete a degree in LLCU. I am not good at learning languages as my long-term memory is not great and so I find Spanish (a language I have never spoken prior to this course) very difficult.

During the second half of September/October I was in a very stressed and unhealthy mental state because of this break-up with my boyfriend, which affected my productivity. All of my energy was going towards assignments/studying in courses I was signed up for already. I did not realize how poorly I was doing in this course until I received my first two failing test grades at the beginning of November (November 4th was the first date). I realized that I still needed to drop this class, however, the last date to drop it without academic penalty had already passed. I then began the process of figuring out if I could change my major as Spanish was a class I was only taking because languages are necessary to complete the LLCU BAH. The past week and a half, I have contacted various professors in the EMPR department and figured out what I need/ the process of switching my major. Now that I have decided this is what I want to do/started the process of doing it, I would like to drop SPAN 111. As stated earlier, I did not realize how poorly I was doing in this class as my mind was preoccupied with the stress of the breakup as well as my other courses and on top of that I hadn’t received many marks yet. I really would appreciate to be granted this petition as this course is no longer required for the major I am switching into and with the rate of how I am currently doing I do not think I will be able to pass the course while juggling everything else. Additionally, I have a Spanish tutor who has been helping me and I am still finding it very difficult to achieve passing grades in this course.

This has truly been a very hard last few months and I have never gone through this type of loss before. In terms of my other courses, focusing has also been more difficult but because they are all in English, I am finding them easier to handle than this Spanish course. I have attached professional documentation from my therapist, Alyson Pancer, who I have been seeing regularly this semester to help me get through this break-up.

In the future, I do not plan on taking any more language courses and I will proceed with switching into the general EMPR plan. I have concluded that learning new languages is not my strength and is not something I want to pursue academically. Additionally, I will continue seeing my therapist to help me with my mental health and coping with school/ the break up.

Thank you for your consideration.