Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Bédard:

I am appealing to waive the one-term limit to retroactively withdraw from a course.

As my medical documentation would attest, I have had longstanding health problems during my time
at Queen's. These health concerns do include a mobility impairment, which is especially problematic
during the winter months. This past winter term, my mobility difficulties were exacerbated by
additional problems with local transit and with access to academic resources on campus. This also
resulted in major problems with completing my coursework during the winter months; I actually
completed most of the coursework (for both my previous fall course and my 2 winter courses) during
the month of April.

However, this past academic year has really been an unprecedented year, in terms of difficulty -
something I do not say lightly. In the fall, I lost 2 longstanding part-time jobs. (I was no longer eligible for one job and I was displaced in the other.) Thus, my only source of income became the medical transcription work, which is a piecework-type job where I cannot even make a minimum hourly wage.

In short, I have been hemorrhaging money this past academic year. I live alone, which means I have
very high living expenses. The medical transcription job has consumed the vast majority of my
functional time, and the resultant pay for all of that (overtime) work is not enough to even meet my
basic living expenses. I have been looking for other employment since the fall - but it is not easy to find work that can accommodate my health circumstances.

I am not sure I can really convey what this past year has been like for me. I have been fighting for my financial survival these past 8 months. Juggling the logistics of an income that is insufficient to meet basic necessities has been beyond stressful; it was -- and still is -- an all-consuming process. Add in my health difficulties, and I have not been able to accomplish much of anything else. In fact, the only way for me to complete my courses was to take time off (unpaid) from work, which given my financial circumstances, would not qualify as a prudent course of action. Nonetheless, I remain an academic at heart, and for what it is worth, my academic endeavours do still matter to me.

Yours truly,


Sau-Ling Hum