Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Nordebechukwu Amanambu,
328B Palace Road,
Kingston, ON.
K7L 4T3.
The Associate Dean (Studies),
Faculty of Arts and Science,
F200 Mackintosh-Corry Hall,
Queen's University.

12 June, 2014.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a geology student and I am writting to appeal the Faculty¿¿s decision that I must withdraw from Queens¿¿ for one year and have the following courses dropped: Math 121, Chem 281, Geol 475, Geol 543, Comm 200, Econ 110 ,Psyc 100 and Micro 221.

On April 16th 2012, a dear friend of mine passed away. She was like family, an older sister to me. Our friendship was built on the bond that our families shared. My mother was in tears when she called me on the 17th April, 2012 to deliver the news that Ijeoma Ofonagor was dead. I was in shock because I had lost an aunt in 2011 and I prayed feverently that death would not take another from me. It was also unfortunate that during this time, my father suffered trememndous financial hardship because one of his businesses closed down. Recently, his buisness did close down and for this reason, I was unable to to pay my tuition fees. My father insisted on paying my siblings (Chisom, Iyke and Joan Amanambu) fees first before mine because he felt that this was right step to take. The first half of my fees were paid on April the 16th, 2014 and the second half was paid after much pleading with my parents on the 11th of June 2014. I was under a tremendous amount of stress and from time to time I fell terribly ill. Because I had not paid even half my fees , I was under the assumption that I was not covered by UHIP (University Health Insurance Plan). I could not go to a hospital becasue I was afraid of accumulating more debt. I stayed home and was taken care of by Philip Adene, a dear friend of mine. He is practically family to me. He was also the one who financially supported during the times I could not afford a decent meal and during the previous two years. Even for the month of June, he was the one who paid my rent and provided for my basic needs (shown by his email transfers).

Due to these extenuating circumstances, I became restless and suffered many sleepless nights. I found it difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time especially when I tried to do problem sets from Math 121 and developed an anxeity problem that would cause me to freeze in the face of a test. I struggled deeply with depression and I was not fully aware of my condition because I could not seek professional help. However, I was able to seek professional help from counseling and disability services and I feel much better now and I can look into to future with hope.

As an international student, my parents have made huge financial investments into my studies because I have been at Queen¿¿s since 2008 and at the end of all this, it will be worthwhile to meet the goal of graduating with a BSc in Geology. I would also like to emphasize that it will be almost impossible to get a job with a BA degree in my home country (Nigeria) and my parents highly dissaprove of a BA degree in Geology because it is not viewed in the same light as a BSC in Geology and they have expectations based on the financial investments and the time I spent at Queen¿¿s. I implore to look favorably upon my request and waive the requirement to withdraw for one academic year