Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Johanne Bénard (Or To Whom This May Concern),

I am writing to you today to appeal to drop WRIT 120 from my Winter 2017 semester.
As I was reviewing my work in this course near the end of March, I realized I had missed one assignment and was late on posting a few discussion posts on the course forum. After some consideration, I decided to contact my TA about this via email. At this same point in time, I received word from my mother that an immediate family member of mine, with whom I am very close, abruptly fell deathly ill and was in critical care at the hospital. My thoughts about my course work in WRIT 120 became secondary to me as I tried my best to balance schoolwork with this family issue, but it was very difficult for me. I was affected by this news greatly and I was unable to focus enough to get any schoolwork done for three days straight. The following weeks while I kept in communication with my mother regarding my family member¿¿s progress in the hospital distracted me from my schoolwork and I even struggled to spend prolonged amounts of time in social settings, which is very unusual for me. I became overwhelmed with emotions, experienced panic attacks, and the thought of schoolwork piling up on me only worsened these feelings. I was overwhelmed because I felt stuck at university and unable to be with my family at this horrible time. This family issue took primary importance to me at that time and, unfortunately, caused me to fall behind not only in this course but in others as well. Thankfully, I was excelling with higher grades in my other courses than this one, but, unfortunately, WRIT 120 is the course that suffered the most as a result of these events, especially at this time in the semester. After some time, I was encouraged by my family and peers to push through the remainder of my semester, and I followed through with my previous plans of contacting my TA. I explained my situation regarding my family member¿¿s circumstances and how it had affected me, and she kindly offered two options: either I could catch up on my missed work, or I could opt to appeal to drop this course, as my TA mentioned that the professor recommended to me due to my current circumstances. Because I wanted to complete this course and have a sense of achievement after these events, I opted to push through and complete my missed work. I decided to leave campus for one week and go home to be with my family and visit my family member in the CCU at the hospital. This gave me enough sense of peace to calm down and I was able to return to some schoolwork and catch up on my work in WRIT 120. I worked efficiently and diligently to make up for the time I had lost, however, unfortunately, my efforts were to no avail as the late penalties overpowered my attempt to make up for this lost time.
So, now, I am taking my professor¿¿s advice and I am kindly and humbly appealing to drop this course. My mark in WRIT 120 is not a true reflection of my potential, as I know that I am more than able to complete the work in this course and excel. Unfortunately, this family event came at a bad time and caused me to miss even more time on top of my already late assignments. I tried my best to make up for this time by completing the assignments after these events took place, however it was too late after too much time had passed. To improve in the future, I plan to take this course again because I know that I can succeed in this course. I completed all the necessary course work for WRIT 120, however, unfortunately, bad news came at a bad time and costed me more late penalties than I already had, which ultimately costed me the entire course. I hope that I have explained my situation sufficiently and that I am eligible to drop this course because this is not a reflection of my abilities as a student and I want my transcript to show my academic abilities, not how unfortunate family circumstances have affected my grades.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of my appeal and best regards,

Lauren Jenkins
16lraj@queensu.ca