Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Maia Snioszek (20227604)
maia.snioszek@queensu.ca

December 20, 2025

Dr. Dorit Naaman
Associate Dean (Academic)
Queen’s University
94 University Ave
Kingston, ON K7L 3N9

Dear Dr. Dorit Naaman,

I am petitioning to drop GLPH 271 (Fall, 2024), IDIS 199 (Fall, 2024), IDIS 373 (Fall, 2024), PSYC 221 (Fall, 2024), and PHAR 370 (Winter, 2025).

The extenuating circumstances I have experienced that directly impacted my academic performance were my mom’s cancer diagnosis and her death. My mom was diagnosed with cancer in July 2021. Things were going okay for the first few years however, she began to get progressively worse into January 2024. When I moved back home in April 2024, I became my mom’s primary caregiver. Unfortunately, she passed away in July 2024, and I was responsible for completing the bureaucratic process while also dealing with grief. As this process takes many months, sometimes years, this became my primary focus and schoolwork became secondary. As a result, I never really got the chance to process my grief once the Fall 2024 semester started. I did begin therapy in October 2023 for other personal reasons and have been attending it regularly since, therefore I thankfully had some support when going through this traumatic situation. In addition, I have had accommodations through QSAS since December 2023 due to the same personal reasons as to why I began going to therapy. However, these resources could only help me in ways that were related to these personal issues and not with my extenuating circumstances, which were still extremely affecting me and my studies.

I did not drop these courses by the drop deadline as I wanted to push through and try my best to complete them. I was unaware of how strong the grief and bereavement were affecting me and how they were causing me immense stress. I also did not realize the mental capacity that the bureaucratic process was taking and how extremely overwhelming it was. For the Winter 2025 semester, I am only petitioning to drop PHAR 370 as I was able to complete my other courses and pass them. I believe the reason for this is because I felt more pressure to succeed in PHAR 370 over the other courses, due to it being the final required credit of my BSc. Kinesiology degree (i.e. “3.0 units from ASC_Sciences_excluding_KNPE_HLTH at the 200 level or above”). It was also a much more difficult course that required more focus and brainpower, something I was struggling with due to the grief and bureaucratic process still occupying my mind. As a result, it significantly caused me increased stress, and I did not successfully pass the course. Since the other courses in Winter 2025 were not specifically needed to fulfill that final credit, I believe I felt less pressure with them, allowing me to be less stressed out and therefore pass.

My future plan consists of continuing to attend therapy and working with my therapist through my grief. We will also work on building sustainable habits that will help with completing my courses to the best of my ability. The bureaucratic process is mostly wrapped up, which has given me more time and mental capacity to focus on school. I want to finish strong in this current fall semester as it is my last one and complete my undergraduate degree to then begin working towards applying for a master’s degree afterwards. For my last semester, I retook IDIS 199 and PSYC 221. Since these are courses, I have taken before, I knew what to expect when it came to their difficulty and the required time spent for studying and assignments, which has led to less overall stress. Since I was able to retake GLPH 271 in Winter 2025 and finish the course with a good mark, I redid these other courses in the fall to be able to say the same. I also chose to take MICR 271 during this fall semester (Fall 2025) to ensure I have more than one course that could count towards my final credit requirement just in case and allow me to graduate.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my letter.

Kind Regards,
Maia Snioszek (20227604)