Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dr. J. Hugh Horton
Associate Dean (Studies)

Dear Dr. J. Hugh Horton,
I am a third year international student in the Faculty of Arts and Science doing a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) writing to you to appeal to drop HIST 121 (Fall and Winter) and also to appeal the Faculty's decision that I must withdraw from Queen's for a minimum of one year.
I have been going through a tough time during my academic career at Queen's University due to stress and anxiety caused by personal and family issues I have been dealing with. This caused me to lose motivation and concentration which disabled me from allocating the adequate amount of time on my academic work and prepare for class. Although I did go to counselling during the Fall term, I was not able to seek the long-term support I needed in the community because of financial reasons. As a result, I was not able to cope well and keep my grades up; I was therefore not able to get out of probation. I however joined the Peer Mentoring Program at the beginning for the Winter term which gave me the emotional and academic support I needed on a weekly basis. This helped me to manage my stress and anxiety better. I was therefore able to concentrate more on my work and I did much better this past semester as result. My academics are very important to me and I felt very anxious as the Peer Mentoring Program was coming to an end and exams were approaching. Unfortunately, this feeling got amplified when my aunt passed away during the exam period which impacted my performance in a negative way and as a result I was not able to get the sufficient grades to get off of probation and my grade point average drastically dropped.