Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Wednesday, June 18th 2014

To Whomever This May Concern,

My name is Kelly Brett and I am an undergraduate student who is on Academic Probation. I recently just finished my first year of studies at Queen's University in the Science Honors program and my cumulative GPA is 1.3. During my second semester at Queen's I did undergo extenuating circumstances that I truly do believe affected my marks in specifically two courses being, Economics 110 and Physics 117. I understand I am now undergoing a 21 day appeal due to the fact that I am passed the specified date to apply for an appeal, and I have reason for these actions.

Upon discovering that my cumulative GPA put me on Academic Probation I immediately started contacting academic advisors here at Queen's. Together we put together a plan to hopefully help me get into the major of my choice for when I start my third year of studies. While planning out my future here at Queen's, I did ask the academic advisor I was speaking too about whether or not I could still partake in Orientation Week as a Gael. She mistakenly told me that my position as a Gael wouldn't be in jeopardy, and unfortunately a few weeks later I received an email confirming that I could not participate in Orientation Week. Heartbroken, for this was the last piece of good news taken away from me. I went through a very long process explaining my extenuating circumstances in second semester in hopes that the Associate Dean would revisit the decision on me being a Gael. After hearing about my difficulties in second semester, Dr.Bénard understood my hardships and decided to allow me to be a Gael in the upcoming Orientation Week. It was only today, Wednesday June 18th, that I decided to appeal my two marks for Economics 110 and Physics 117 because Dr.Bénard advised me to do so as soon as possible, and because I now felt as if I had some ground to stand on. My extenuating circumstances that I will go into detail about shortly deal with issues of bullying, cyber-bullying and many more stressful and distracting events. I hope that to whoever is taking their time to read this that you consider my circumstances and take them as seriously as several other members of the Queen's Faculty already have.

During the second semester of my first year here at Queen's University I did have the following issues occur to that put me under a significant amount of stress leading right up, and into my finals. On the night of my physics midterm being Friday February 28th, 3 girls who I was supposed to be living with during my next year at Queen's decided to go see a house without me, even though I told them that it interfered with my testing time. When I returned from my midterm at 8:00 p.m. I called my mother to tell her about my midterm, during this time I was rudely interrupted by one of the girls who saw the house without me. She then informed me that herself one of the other girls were signing the property and that I could, quote, We're living there, you can live somewhere else, go live with Kat, being another girl in our residence who I barely knew. Extremely shocked by their actions for we had been planning to live together since first semester, I was suddenly very stressed and panicked. I now needed to spend more time then I wanted visiting numerous houses and apartments to try and quickly find a place to live. Countless hours were lost visiting many properties and my mind became very sidetracked, for finding a new home regretfully became my main priority over my academics as stress consumed me.

As this housing issue was going on my social life in residence was growing worse by the day with the same girls who had caused this problem in the first place. I received awful comments and confrontations daily from two of the girls, one in particular, and although I can usually handle myself in situations like this, the bullying eventually became too much to handle. On Sunday April 6th at about around 9:00 p.m., 6 days away from my two hardest exams being physics and economics, I called home hysterically crying begging for my parents to come pick me up. As I was on the phone with my mother I told her that just moments before calling I was brutally bullied by both girls at the same time when they discovered that I removed them from all social media sites. My parents hearing me so upset immediately drove up to Kingston to bring me home for the next few days before my first two exams that were both on Saturday April 12th. The night of April 6th was my breaking point and I could no longer stand to even be in the same areas as these bullies, so I removed myself from residence completely to hopefully study more peacefully at home. When I was home there were distractions, but I proceeded to study as hard as I could so that I could do my best on my first two finals. One night it was brought to my attention that one of the girls was posting terrible things on a social media site about not only me, but also my mother. I looked at this act as a very intense form of cyber-bullying and could not believe that even though I had left university for the time being, that I was still being bullied. With all of this going on right before my first two exams, which were already going to be very difficult for they were my worst two subjects and the finals were on the same day, I was very nervous going into both tests. This was because I did not feel adequately prepared to write finals after the stress I had gone through, on top of normal exam stress. Unfortunately, my stress did get the best of me and I tested most poorly on both my physics and economics exam, resulting in final marks of a D and D- in the subjects. After these two exams I was still bullied throughout the remainder of my time at Queen's making it hard to study, however I performed better, but not to the best of my ability, in my last two exams that were my favorite and best courses.

I do believe that if I did not have to try to find a house in a rush and suffer through bullying during second semester, that I would have had a major reduction in my stress level. With less stress I truly do believe that I could have tested better in mainly my first two exams, but also my last two as well. If I was able to display my full knowledge and what I had learned throughout the school year more adequately, my physics and economics marks I believe would be higher, raising my GPA and putting me in a much greater academic standing. With a greater academic I could have had the opportunity to get into my major of choice.

As I have outlined above, there were significant issues regarding housing issues and bullying that did occur in second semester that caused my stress levels to increase much greater than they ever should have been. My stress levels were especially brought up from the bullying that occurred right before and during the exam period. My parents advised me to speak to a counselor about the bullying issues, but I thought I could handle it until school ended. I did everything that I could have done in a responsible manner to try and help the situation, removing both of them from all social media sites, avoiding them in person and physically removing myself from the area whenever they were present. This bullying was a significant issue as one of the girls continued to try to confront me in anyway possible even after school had ended. I realize now that the bullying I experienced while at Queen's did affect me, it resulted a poor academic performance of my first year. While speaking to Dr.Bénard today during our phone appointment, I assured her that when I return to Queen's in the Fall that if either of the girls were to confront me again that I would contact a counselor immediately. Furthermore, the reason it has taken me so long to appeal my marks is because I did not want to burden anyone with these issues for I did not think I would be taken seriously. It wasn't until Spring Forsberg and Dr.Bénard recognized and validated that my extenuating circumstances did indeed affect my academics, that I felt that I could make an appeal that would be taken seriously.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and I hope you consider it thoroughly. As far as documentation goes, Dr.Bénard recommended that my mother, Stephanie Brett, write a letter explaining what she witnessed during this time. Since I have blocked and removed these two girls from social media I don't have access to any of the cyber-bullying comments made by them. It never occurred to me to print out or hold onto any physical proof of their comments made during my time at Queen's. I am sorry to say that for documentation purposes you will just have to rely on my letter, my mother's letter, the emails between Spring Forsberg and I, and you will have to contact Dr.Bénard regarding our phone call if you wish to do so. I anxiously await to hear what the decision on my appeal will be.


Sincerely,
Kelly Brett