Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,
I am appealing to have my final grade in POLS 243 (States and Nations), taken in the Fall of 2013, to be removed from my transcript.
Recently, I spoke with one of Queen's counselors in my attempt to resolve the issues that have resulted in my poor academic performance as of late. There, I was told what I had suspected for quite some time: that I was clinically depressed. The reasons for my depression are many, some of which I will identify here. In the past two years, both of my parents were diagnosed with different forms of cancer. My marks began to slide in the fall of 2012, after my mother was diagnosed and had to undergo surgery. At the beginning of the fall 2013 semester, my father was diagnosed as well. While at the time I did not suspect it would have a significant impact on me, I was wrong. Another reason for my depression is related to my social life. While I would consider myself to be an introvert, coming to terms with this and trying to deal with it thus far have been difficult. The result of my poor decision-making with how to deal with this was that I felt worse about myself, becoming more of a recluse. One common symptom of depression is an inability to make decisions. This has affected me for some time now, in different ways. In one way, it has led me to be unsure if I have taken the right path with my choice to do History as a major and Political Science as a minor. I was unable to decide if a change would be for the best and ended up staying in both. My inability to make decisions, coupled with my embarrassment about being depressed, led to it becoming at times difficult to even get out of bed, let alone to class. It was then that I realized the best thing to do would be to seek out help, from either my family doctor, a counselor, or friends. This is what led me to eventually reach out to Queen's counseling services. While doing so has thus far led to an improvement in my well-being, it was too late to do anything about my poor academic performance this past year. I am therefore hoping to have my mark from POLS 243 removed from my transcript, since at the time I would consider myself to have been psychologically impaired.
In order to achieve academic success again, I believe I have taken the appropriate first step by talking with a Queen's counselor about the problems I am facing. After writing this appeal, I intend to consult an academic advisor about what steps still need to be taken in order for me to graduate this upcoming year (2014-2015). I am hoping to retake POLS 243 to improve upon my performance, since I believe I can do much better in the course. Since my depression has been ongoing for some time, I intend to continue consulting Queen's Counseling Services as an outlet for any stress I am having, as well as consulting my family doctor for other ways in which I can improve my well-being. I have no doubt that with help, my performance in the classroom will improve dramatically from the results I had this past year. I am also planning on becoming more involved in the Queen's community, potentially through joining clubs, in order to feel more included. Lastly, while I have neglected the student services available at Queen's to this point, I intend to seek out help in this area as well, in the form of tutoring, the Queen's Writing Centre, etc. I believe that through these decisions, my depression will be relieved, and I will be able to focus more on my academics and return to the successes I have had in the past. Thank you for considering my appeal. I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Duncan McKerron (0624 3338)