Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean:

I am writing to appeal to drop two courses from my transcript. These two courses are: WRIT 125 and Dram 273. This appeal is extremely important, and I can give you as much documentation as I am humanely capable of to support my request and claim. I have been living in Montreal, Quebec since October 2013, and getting a family doctor there is difficult, even for Quebec residents of Quebec.

I needed only two courses in order to complete my degree in Gender Studies. However, due to a very difficult Fall 2012/Winter 2013 semester(s) in which I was extremely ill I felt that I should work on my GPA this year. In the Fall semester I was the victim of sexual assault, however, it was a matter in which authorities deemed ¿¿domestic¿, and I had no where to turn. I had a very difficult time completing my courses in the Fall 2013 semester and was lucky to have accommodating professors and TAs for the most part. This time in my life was very dark, and as I was already battling depression and past eating disorders it was really devastating, as it would have been for anyone. In addition to this I had difficulty with my Dram 273 midterm¿¿I was in Brampton (my parent¿¿s home) on this week and there was a storm and I have the email in which I did email my professor explaining that Internet was not doing well in any area in Brampton at that time whether or not I went to a Starbucks or stayed at my house. Regardless, I was not in a right state of mind during this period of time. I have had to change my number, and move from my apartment in Montreal to live with friends at another location as a result of the sexual assault. I completed Phys P20 and ENG 223 only because of the patience and kindness of my professors and TAs. It would not have been manageable otherwise. I do not expect these kindnesses from everyone, but I do hope that as a school community there is an understanding that no type of sexual assault is acceptable and without accommodation at that time I was not capable of completing my courses. For this reason, I am pleading to have Dram 273 removed from my transcript. I took the course to improve my GPA, and instead I

In regards to the Winter 2014 semester, I first came into issue with my order with the Campus Bookstore at Queen¿¿s. I ordered my books well ahead of time (end of December/very beginning of January¿¿I have a copy of the receipt), before Christmas break was over. I did not receive my order at all even after I was told that it was dispatched from the bookstore. I checked with the post and the service that Queen¿¿s uses and the bookstore was not sure what happened either. This resulted in me not being able to read the course material for my Writ 125 class and preventing me from essential material for the assignments. I told my professor and my TA this and my professor directed me towards my TA who said to wait until I received the book so that I could complete an essential outline to our first assignment. I did not receive the book or my French course access code key for the online resource we used in P17. The woman at the bookstore who deals with the online orders ended up sending me my access key code via email, and I am currently completing my French course this week. However, I never did receive my Writ 125 course book and a friend from Kingston ended up bringing me a copy from the bookstore during a visit to Montreal. It was at this time mid-February and I ran into a lot of issues with my instructors for this course. Following this event, in mid-February, I was hit by a car while crossing the street (on a pedestrian walking signal) in a hit and run¿¿this occurred in February. No witnesses came forward, and I walked myself to the hospital in a state of shock. I was on a busy street with several witnesses, but no one did anything and I reported it at the hospital that evening but waited almost ten hours and eventually left because I had work the next morning at a new job that I could not miss as I support myself. I do have the hospital card from the visit and could possibly summon documents from what I reported to them. In addition to this I did visit a clinic that week and report what happened. The Quebec government does in most cases cover costs for physio etc. but I am still waiting to hear/receive any compensation and I cannot afford physiotherapy so that has been another issue in itself. I explained this to my profs of this semester which include my courses of: Writ 125, p17, and Hist 200. I am completing the latter two of the three courses currently. I also completed my Film course from first semester, it just does not say ¿IN¿¿ for incomplete at the moment on my transcript, but I have been informed that this will be updated.

I know that I am past the appeal date, but I thought I was receiving an ¿IN¿¿ in all three courses and then after back and forth emails with my Writ 125 professor she decided not to allow me to complete the course even though I told her at the time that I had two of the four assignments completed for her. I do understand that it is not an obligation for any instructor/professor to grant an incomplete grade but I did hope that under the horrible circumstances of my past few months that I would receive the ¿IN¿¿ status until the end of June as my other two professors had granted. I am asking that these two courses (Dram 273 and Writ 125) be taken off of my transcript and that my tuition fees are for those two courses are excused because I never had a fair chance to do either of these courses. In reality I did not have a chance to do any courses this year, but I was extremely lucky to have some of my professors give me a second chance.

In addition to this, on May 5th I was given a bad cheque by a supposed new employer who turned out to actually be scamming me, and the cheque resulted in my owing TD bank 2,850 for a cheque that I was told by the bank themselves was legitimate and okay to deposit. Once the individuals ¿stopped payment¿¿ on the cheque it was deemed counterfeit and though I was the one that was scammed, and attempted to be used as a money-launderer the bank came to the conclusion that I had to pay back the 2,850. I am currently in the midst of filing my own report/investigation with the Montreal RCMP to see if they can recover my losses and reverse what the bank has done and is trying to do with my credit. Each week they dip into my accounts taking a majority of my cheques from work to pay back the money that I was scammed out of. I hope that you can see why it is almost insanity for me to pay for two courses that I not only was not provided the ordered materials for from the campus bookstore (especially as I am in no close proximities to pick up the books personally and as a distance-studies student this was a very unfair and unfortunate error and disadvantage to my studies), in addition to what I have gone through this year. I do like to play the victim, and I won¿¿t call myself a victim but I am in a very bad state. In terms of documents that I can provide this is obviously difficult given the circumstances of some of the events that I have explained in this appeal. The documents/proof that I can think of are: My campus bookstore receipts/order, my emails with the bookstore representative, my letter from the clinic explaining that I should have a leave from work/school (which I could not take due to having to pay bills, and already being months into the courses), my hospital card from the evening of the car accident, possibly retrieving the hospital report from that night if they will give me this. All else that I can think of is having my family doctor who treats me for my depression and who I have seen quite a few times in the past two months writing a letter of my state and what I had told him the past few times that I have seen him. Please let me know what would be helpful for me to supply to you to accompany this appeal. I apologize for the lengthiness of this appeal, but there was no way to fully get my message and plea for help and assistance across to you in 800 words.

Thank you,

Kaitlyn Brittany Sewell

Student ID : 0611 9524