Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this letter to request an appeal to obtain credit standing within the courses BIO 102 and BIO 103 as well as to drop ANAT 101, ENG 100B, PSYC 100, HLTH 101, HLTH 102 and ECON 111 taken during the Fall 2017 and Winter 2018 school terms.

The reason for the request of appeal is that during the past eight months, I have been dealing with heightened anxiety, stress and poor mental health due to extenuating circumstances beyond my control. These circumstances include, but are not limited to, family and personal health issues. The strain of having a daughter and juggling being a mother and school along with her father harassing and threatening my relationship with her and parental issues, created higher levels of stress and anxiety which in turn weakened my ability to stay on top of school work and assignments. I thought I could handle these issues and separate them from my school life but they became too much and ended up affecting my academic performance drastically. These issues pulled me away from focusing and trying my best regarding my school responsibilities. The stress and personal health issues required all my attention, hindering my ability to complete course expectations on time or at all resulting in failure of credits and low grades. These events occurred November until April, with it starting to affect my academic performance late November til the end of first year. These circumstances affected my ability to complete work, study appropriately, prepare for class, go to class, involve myself in study groups and reach out for assistance as I was constantly driving home to see my daughter and losing time to work on assignments and coursework then while I was in kingston I was unable to focus and complete work efficiently and effectively.
It was after December break that I realized I needed to make the time to reach out for help and I was able to book an appointment with a personal counselor at Queen's to start addressing the issues I was experiencing. During my sessions with her, she directed me to an occupational therapist, who has assisted me with scheduling, documentation for late assignments along with strategies for doing better in school next year. We agreed that taking two courses over the summer would be the best choice and I am currently enrolled in PSYC 100 and HLTH 101 online from May-August, hoping to do well to replace the previous grades.