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Petition Letter: Appeal Letter, Arts and Science Associate Dean, April 12, 2018

I am writing to request that I be granted a second deferral of my final PSYC 202 statistics exam (GPHY247/POLS 385) and a short deferral for my missed 203 Research Methods final exam. I am currently navigating an extremely difficult separation and custody situation which involves harassment, emotional/verbal abuse and parental alienation. I have had moderate accommodations to deal with the unpredictable nature of the situation during the 2016/17 terms and this year I have seen my family Dr. Bahn, Dr. Butler at the Queen¿¿s Wellness Centre; Tess Grant for academic strategies; Meg Hall who updated my 2017/18 accommodations and have sought support from the Ban Righ Centre. Documentation is in the ASC file.

This academic year, it has gotten to the point where I have had to readjust and realign most of my emotional and cognitive resources to traverse the legal system, deal with escalating and debilitating harassment, ensure counseling and most importantly that the emotional needs of my children are met. After the most recent court date in November, the situation became extreme and is having an increasingly negative affect on myself and my children which removed much academic and study time from my daily life. Unfortunately, on top of the situation my children and myself dealt with recurring bouts of the flu in February/March, which kept me home from classes, first to care for them and then to recover myself. Assumingly due to extreme stress, I became quite ill and have only just recently become well enough to begin the process of being able to tackle my academic demands. Ensuring my children are succeeding at school and have a stable loving home has had to be my top priority.

In summary, I was unable to focus on my classes to the degree needed and as a result I fell far behind in statistics during second half of fall term which had a ripple effect upon other courses. Dr. Nelson was kind enough to grant me a deferral of the exam assuming I would be able to focus on getting caught up over the winter term and could write the GPHY 247/POLS 384 statistics exam in place of PSYC 202. Due to the escalation of my situation, I was unable to do so. The situation surrounding the PSYC 203 course this term is similar with an elevation in harassment combined with higher emotional needs in my children during the past 2-3 weeks. Generally, I am a high achieving student and have managed to stay afloat in my current classes but to take the Statistics exam this week, I would surely fail, leaving me in a very difficult situation. My request for a deferral until the end of summer term for psyc 202 would allow me the opportunity to succeed, which as a single parent is crucially important to me and allow me to remain in the Honours Psychology program, secure graduation and ultimately employment for family stability.

Thank you sincerely for considering my appeal,
Nicole Thomson