Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I would like to apply for credit standing in two of my courses, POLS 338 and POLS 358. I would additionally like to apply for aegrotat standing with a credit grade in POLS 385 and aegrotat standing in POLS 367.
I have been dealing with mental health issues for as long as I can remember, and it has negatively impacted my life in every aspect. My mental health issues have both nearly ruined my life and nearly ended my life on multiple occasions in the past seven or eight years. This semester, I was facing a lot of personal pressures regarding family with whom I have attempted to have little to no contact due to past events that were very personally damaging to me. Their attempts to contact me have been detrimental to my capacity to manage depression and anxiety. In addition, I have struggled for years with managing anxiety, depression, and distressing emotions. I find this a lot more difficult in the winter, and I found that during this semester I was not able to manage my habitual distress, and that it spiralled out of control. Due to my personal mental health issues combined with the above mentioned personal issues, I have struggled immensely with my courses this semester. This has left me unable to perform academically to the standard of which I am capable.
In all of my courses this semester, I have been unable to perform to the standard of which I am capable due to my mental health. If my mental health were to have been manageable during this semester, I would have been able to achieve grades similar to those that I achieved last semester. I dropped one course in the hope that it would lighten my course load and thus make it less stressful, and pursued counselling services on campus in an attempt to manage my declining mental health. I am currently unable to complete the final exams in my courses and am asking for aegrotat with credit grade in POLS 367 and POLS 385 as I am currently in ongoing distress and I am unable to resolve my mental health concerns, and do not believe that I will be able to resolve these concerns in the near future. I am unable to deal with my anxiety, depression, or distressing emotions, and I struggle constantly. As such, pushing back the deadlines to write exams would only exacerbate my inability to effectively study for them. I will not be able to study for these exams as I cannot escape from my anxiety which, in some ways, has become situationally attached to these courses.
In regards to POLS 338 and POLS 358, I was similarly unable to perform to the standard of which I am capable due to declining mental health. I have been trying to salvage my grades throughout the entirety of the semester, and I deferred my other two exams in the hope that I would be better able to concentrate on these two. Unfortunately, this was not the case and my mental health prevented me from effectively studying or concentrating while in the exam room. If my mental health were better, I would have performed better. As such, I would like to request a credit standing for both of these courses based on my past grades and the fact that my mental health has declined too rapidly this semester for me to manage.

I am extremely unable to manage to stress, and I am unable to deal with unexpected negative circumstances to the point where I feel out of control most of the time. I frequently have panic attacks and this has left me unable to complete most tasks. These are usually triggered by things that are beyond my control, and leave me disoriented and feeling helpless to the point where I am unable to function normally for hours afterwards. This makes it difficult to concentrate in class or while studying. I have difficulty getting out of bed most days as I struggle a lot with anxiety and depression, which has made attending classes difficult. Additionally, I have a lot of anxiety around men due to past violence and abuse, which makes it very difficult for me to speak with professors, as most of my professors have been male. I attempt to avoid men because of my anxiety. For example, everywhere I go (dentist, QSASS, hairdressers, etc.), I specifically request women and if that is not an option I forgo those services. As such, when I want to clarify course material or discuss assignments, it is very challenging and emotionally exhausting for me. This has had an impact on more challenging courses where I need greater clarification, such as POLS 385.

I was having a difficult time coping with my situation in January, and I made several attempts to mitigate the problems. I made the difficult decision to drop one of my five courses in January with the hope that only taking four courses would make it easier to manage. I sought help from counselling in Lasalle Hall, as I have in previous years, to try and manage my emotions and anxiety. However, as the semester progressed, I had an increasingly difficult time completing the most basic tasks and it became nearly impossible to complete course work, go to my job, or even clean my house. I was determined to get through the semester as I have a lot of anxiety about jeopardizing my academic record and thereby all future pursuits. However, my decisions were not made in consultation with counselling and I did not realize that my situation had gotten so severe that by not dropping courses, or having some other intervention, I was jeopardizing my academic record as I was not able to push through my problems.
I have been registered with Accessibility Services since the fall of this year. Through this, I have received accommodated examinations which have helped as I have less anxiety outside of large crowds, and has been effective for managing panic attacks during exams thanks to the added writing time. This was effective to a point last semester. I had an experience where a professor neglected to collect my final exam from the exams office last semester and accused me of not writing the exam until I begged that he double-check. At that point, he found my exam and I received an A in the course (POLS 384); however, this experience gave me a lot of anxiety about writing accommodated exams this semester. I felt that it was a difficult decision between anxiety of being in crowds or the anxiety of some similar problem with a professor occurring. This has been an additional source of anxiety. While Accessibility Services has for the most part been helpful in dealing with exams, due to the specified nature of some of my anxieties, there are many problems that affect me and my ability to complete coursework that have (understandably) not been resolved (e.g. anxiety due to men ¿¿ male professors). This is something that I wish to work on with the help of counselling services in Lasalle.

In regards to future plans, I have thought about the situation endlessly and what I could have done to prevent it getting to this point. I am constantly planning ahead because I have a very hard time dealing with anxiety, so it is hard to avoid thinking about upcoming potential problems. I have found it to be too overwhelming to deal with five courses and work outside of school at same time. In an effort to combat this, I enrolled (a couple of months ago) to take online courses during the summer to diminish my workload during the school year. It is my hope that this will make the work easier to manage and less overwhelming so that I can deal with my personal problems without the added stress of being overwhelmed by schoolwork. I will be seeing Hannah and Laurie at counselling services in Lasalle Hall in order to manage my personal problems. Additionally, I have been contacted with community counselling services through Kingston General Hospital after being taken to emergency by police earlier this week. I am hoping that the combination of support will help me to improve my situation. In May, I will also be seeing Dr. Duffy, a psychiatrist in Lasalle, for the first time. I received a referral to her at the beginning of April, and I am hoping to gain more insight into my situation and assistance from meeting with her. In the future, I will make sure to be aware of drop dates and try to accurately judge, with the help of counselling services, whether I should be dropping courses if I am unable to manage in the future.


Thank you for your time,

Jessica Dawn Serson 10153415