Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,
I am writing this petition to appeal my grade in MUSC171 during the winter term in the school year 2023/2024. I am requesting the appeal due to a security issue I had this past semester; a former friend made offensive comments about sexual assault, particularly the sexual assault of women which caused me to fear for my safety as he made it clear that he saw no issue with sexually assaulting a woman. After those horrendous comments he made to me in the presence of another friend, both me and the friend decided that it would be best to distance ourselves from this individual. This action caused the individual to become somewhat hostile, and further made me fear for my safety on campus due to the fact that he was asking my friends to locate me, and would randomly enter my room. This went on for about a month before I reported it to my don, who then took it to the RLC on campus. At the beginning they told me that there were very limited steps they could take, and that he would continue being my neighbor and having access to me as well as my dorm room. During that period I left campus and went home as I could not be guaranteed my safety, and I didn’t want to risk him attempting to confront me again after multiple attempts. Eventually I was put in contact with the sexual violence prevention and response team who made the steps to have temporary measures put in place. The measures made me feel safe for about a week and I was able to go back to my normal life since I was not attending classes or leaving my dorm before the measures were put in place. About two weeks after the temporary measures were put in place it was clear to me that the individual was not following the measures, and still had access to me; this was further proved when I saw him on April 24 with no warning that he would be permitted back into Victoria Hall without security. This whole ordeal that spanned for around 3-4 months and caused me to fear for my safety consistently, which profoundly impacted my academic success this term and it is clearly displayed in the major drop from my grades in first term. I felt as though I could not properly learn due to the fact that I was scared to go to classes, tutorials and other school sanctioned activities because of this individual. I have extreme anxiety which only worsened during this period as I felt safe nowhere and constantly found myself asking friends to accompany me downstairs to just get food, or do simple tasks like taking out my garbage and doing my laundry. I also was unable to truly devote myself to my academics due to the fact that I wasn’t able to comfortably work anywhere, including my dorm room, without worrying that he would randomly enter. I was severely depressed during this period due to the fact that a lot of my self confidence came from academic validation and I had barely passed my classes. What this individual has done has caused me to go back to my therapist for support as I have a suicidal past and my depression was spiking, as well as caused me to have major anxiety about returning to campus. I have begun the process of filing a formal complaint against this individual to aid my anxiety towards returning to campus. I know for a fact that I would have succeeded academically this term had it not been for the entire situation with this individual. Adjusting to university was hard, and I finally had begun to adjust when everything occured which caused me to lose focus and forget about assignments and other deadlines. During this period I was in contact with Professor MacKay and he was very helpful in giving me extensions and providing support which really helped me, however, not all my professors were as forgiving. I truly tried my best to keep up with my academics during this period, yet I wasn’t able to achieve what I hoped for. I really hope you consider appealing this grade as if it were not for this situation I can promise that my grade would not have been so low in the first place. I am going to continue to try my very best with my academics, and take further steps to ensure my safety next year so this never occurs again. Thank you so much for your time.