Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Tuesday, April 28th, 2026
Dear Associate Dean,

I am a second year undergrad student in the Faculty of Art & Science and I am petitioning to late drop ECON 254 (Winter, 2026).

In the winter of 2026 I experienced extenuating circumstances beyond my control that severely and negatively impacted my academic performance. This was the direct result of an unforeseen, increase in the presence of symptoms related to my permanent chronic health condition.

Although this condition is chronic, your ongoing experience of it is acute and unpredictable. There are a syndrome of symptoms that acutely flare up, the symptoms can vary, they can vary in severity, and they can cause significant physical illness and loss in time dealing with them. If they are more severe, they can hijack time, interrupt plans, disrupt sleep, disrupt eating and other daily parts of living. Your academic environment can be disrupted; class attendance, assigned work, reading, studying, etc., are forced aside until you are well enough to do them.

I am petitioning this specific course ECON 254 and the unexpected extreme negative academic impact it experienced this winter, as a result of a continued increase in flare ups that crept in during the fall.

It is important to note that all of my courses this year experienced greater negative academic outcomes in a health situation that was not expected to grow in its impact on my daily life. The random aspect of symptoms disguised this trend of increase. What I recognized first was a new level of difficulty managing this academic situation.

This is a timeline of the growing negative impact on my academic environment. Prior to the fall of 2025 I had successfully managed the challenges my illness brought to my academic responsibilities on my own. In my first year I had a full course load, with no special interventions of support with very good academic success (I made the Dean’s Honour List in my first year).

September 2025, I looked into Academic Consideration to help me navigate missing classes and losing attendance marks. They directed me toward QSAS as a good system of academic support since I had a chronic health issue with acute flare ups. October I began to follow through on the QSAS intake process. In October 2025, my family doctor provided a letter explaining this condition, to support registering with QSAS for my second year at Queen’s (included).

It is important to note, this condition rarely involved doctors visits beyond the initial diagnosis. 2021 was the last time I pursued an update on my condition. There are no medical interventions for symptoms, only ongoing management strategies to deal with your unique combination and severity of issues, through trial and error, to see what helps alleviate symptoms. Trying to improve your health is a work in progress.

October 2025 was the first time I was forced to drop a difficult course that I recognized I could not keep up with. Dropping this course was very upsetting. It felt discouraging but I had no reason to believe things would worsen. To me this was an unfortunate outcome of symptoms interfering with class attendance and bad timing with an important academic assessment.

In late October I submitted required QSAS registration supporting medical documents from my doctor in Vancouver. I had intended to complete an intake meeting with my QSAS advisor in November, however, between academic workload, catch up, deadlines and flare ups, I was not been able to follow through before December final exams. January, I booked the earliest appointment available to complete QSAS intake and meet with my advisor. February 18th we discussed the kind of accommodations that would support my courses. I received accommodations to request an alternative method of evaluation in lieu of attendance marks and the ability to request extended deadlines.

At the very start of the Winter Term 2026, I reduced my courses from five to three to get ahead of the possibility of this continued struggle of increased frequency of symptoms to both help support my health situation and reduce the negative impact on my academic environment. I did expect things to begin to turn around. However, the frequency of days I was unwell continued to create a very difficult academic situation and navigating this grew harder and harder.

Also, although I struggled with attendance in all three courses, ECON 254 was the most difficult to manage, learn and keep up with. In addition, the course marks were distributed 10% attendance, 10% assignments, 30% midterm and 50% final exam.

Early February I contacted my ECON 254 professor addressing my situation and concern over losing attendance marks. I had accommodations for this and requested an alternative method of evaluation, in lieu of participation (as suggested by my QSAS advisor). He decided to reallocate that 10% to the other components of the course making the breakdown of marks 11% Assignments, 32% Midterm and a 57% Final.

March 3, 2026 matters became much worse. I was unwell and missed the midterm for ECON 254. I requested a deferred exam (as advised), however, my professor said that the normal procedure in a case like this was to transfer the weight of the midterm (32%) to the final exam. This now meant I had an ECON 254 Final worth 89%.

At the time I did NOT recognize what an extremely difficult and risky academic situation I was in. When the professor said in his email that this was normal procedure I accepted this to be the case. I should have recognized that I did not have control over the most important factor that a student needs, reliable good health.

March was an overwhelming time with course work, battling the stress, dealing with illness and desperately wanting to complete all of my courses. March 27th confirmed an ideal exam schedule, with QSAS accommodations, and I still thought I could complete the courses even if that meant lesser marks. My judgement was very impaired and I believe this prevented me from properly assessing this dramatic situation with ECON 254 and using the last day to drop option for students.

I managed my first final ECON 232 Tuesday the 13th. I ended up unwell Wednesday, April 15th. Early the 16th I tried to continue to attempt preparing for ECON 254 but it became clear I was not bouncing back and unable to prepare. I notified my professor that I would be unable to write the final because I was not well and unable to prepare, requesting a deferred exam the following week. The morning of Friday the 17th my professor’s replied agreeing to look into a deferred exam the following week. I continued to be unwell Friday. Saturday I improved enough to continue studying for ECON 222 Monday the 20th.

Monday the 20th my professor emailed with deferred exam time slot. I thanked him for his effort to arrange this and let him know I was not well enough to prepare for the exam. He advised me that I would be put on a list for May.

It was during that last weekend struggling to prepare for ECON 222, that the facts of this situation really hit home and I recognized that writing the ECON 254 exam was way beyond my reach:

I have a total of 11% of a course assessment in ECON 254. 89% of my course assessment based on the results of one single final exam performance. I just missed it’s final exam because I was too unwell. I barely made it to my Monday ECON 222 exam and I struggled to focus and write it. Attempting to write a deferred final at this time does NOT make sense, it is not realistic and will not be a fair measure of my academic capability and will bring permanent damage to my academic record.

Unfortunately, the outcome of this winter has forced me to let go of my plan for an undergrad degree from Queen’s. I have moved back home to Vancouver and my future plan is to continue a degree at UBC. Living at home will provide a lot of needed support and I will expect to turn my health back around.

I do have an offer of admission from UBC with conditions that include being a student in good standing and maintaining the academic level demonstrated. I am hoping you will grant this petition to late drop this course, and help my chance of moving forward with a degree at UBC. Their transcript deadline is May15th. I am hoping to prevent a very poor mark, not reflecting my true academic ability, from permanently damaging my record.

I also want to apologize as I realize this letter exceeds what you would normally receive. I believed it was necessary to help you understand this unique situation and there is a lot on the line for me academically.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Thomas Haldenby

20494645