Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear the Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing to obtain Credit Standing for Stat 268 (Fall 2016) and Chem 281 (Fall 2016).

I am writing this letter in hopes to give you a background towards my appeals. Within the period marked between the last week of August 2016 to the entrance into the new year, I have experienced extenuating circumstances beyond my control which have greatly influenced my academic performance. The extenuating circumstances included a psychological challenge which resulted from a traumatic event. The results of this event included suffering from extreme mental illness, specifically PTSD, depression, and anxiety over these past months.
As the traumatic event transpired before the entrance to the new academic year, the challenges which resulted from it became integrated into my academic life. Alongside the illnesses were a strong association with indecisiveness and an infected sense of judgment. These led to a lack of confidence towards the courses I was enrolled in, leading me to drop three of them and switch completely into three other courses. As this change occurred during the few weeks of the first semester, I had not realized it put my entire academics behind in terms of that timeframe of length. The repercussions of this action had only misguided me further down the wrong path. Despite the academics that I considered myself unable to proceed, the only course that kept my foot in the door was the course that had covered the same material I had previously learned the year before, Math 221. Yet after an extremely low performance on my midterms, my illness had completely inhibited any possible path towards bettering my academic. Inhibitions such as severe lack of concentration and motivation, and no self-care or preservation, resulted in further poor academic performance. There was a point where I had retreated completely into my illness, giving up on all academic pursuits. There was an abrupt witness to my class attendance, as well as an event of not attending one of my second round of midterms. It was only with the encouragement of the people surrounding me that I became aware of my illnesses and began seeing a counselor at Queens. The counseling did help, but the sessions were unable to be frequent enough to help towards making impactful changes before the exam season. I entered the exam season with the same extremities of illnesses that I had suffered with for months before, leading only to the same repeated patterns and lack of focus which prevent the results of my exams to reflect my true academic abilities.
Since becoming aware of my difficulties and illnesses, I have continued to see my counselor at LaSalle. Within the beginning of the winter semester, my doctor and I have begun medication, which has created a significant improvement. Not only in my personal life but specifically in my academics. The awareness and strategies my doctor and counselors have mapped paved the way to maximizing my progression through the recovery of my illnesses. My plans for this semester and my future were to rebuild my confidence and dedication towards my schooling as well as becoming more involved with my community. Academics wise I plan to take courses I am more confident in and will have strong communications with my professors so that if I ever need academic help, I can always reach out to them. Although I am still not completely recovered, I find I have been increasingly better. I have decided to pursue a summer course to regain some time lost academically within the fall semester. If I continue to steadily increase academically then I will return within the next academic year. If I find I am still struggling, I will consider possibly taking a year away to regain control of my health. I do have high hopes for this semester and I have feeling things will only continue to get better. This appeal is in strong association with my hopes for achieving the academic success that I believe I was on the path towards prior to these events. As a future in graduate schooling has been my dream, with your help I will be able to follow that academic goal once more.

Sincerely,
Lily Riley Summers