Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Associate Dean Studies



To whom it may concern,



My name is Steven Mai, and I am writing this letter of appeal to address two things: appealing to drop all of my failed courses, and appealing to drop my requirement to withdraw for a minimum of one year. These two appeals are closely related and I will explain how later. I did not perform academically leading up to these two outcomes which I wish to appeal and this is with good reason; this being a physical illness. To start off, this all began in August of 2016. I play soccer competitively and at this time I was trying out for the Queen's Men's Varsity Soccer Team. During this tryout period, I tore my ACL, as well as slightly tearing both my medial and lateral meniscus. This was a few weeks before my first semester at Queen's and after a couple weeks of bedrest, I was able to move with the aid of crutches. As the first semester began, I was academically performing up to standards, but as the semester proceeded, my knee posed a large problem of not just attending classes, but also the level of pain was very intense, to the point that some days I would not be able to sit up and get out of my bed which greatly hindered my ability to perform well. After the first semester, I was considering applying for a leave of absence until my knee improved, but in December of 2016 I received a surgery for my torn medial and lateral meniscus which was supposed to relieve a lot of pressure from the joint and help blood flow throughout my leg. With such prospects for improvement, I decided that since the majority of my courses were full year courses, I could stick it out and improve my grades since I was able to perform well before the health complications became apparent. This was not the case and my health continued to deteriorate and my academic standing second semester resulted in myself being placed on academic probation. I recently spoke with an Arts and Science advisor by the name of Cindy and she told me that I could appeal to drop my courses that I failed at that time; however, I did not know I was able to do so at that point in time and going into second year (2017-2018) I was still on academic probation. Before returning to Queen's for my second year, my knee's condition deteriorated so much to the point where I finally got surgery to repair my torn ACL. The surgery was a success and I began my post operation therapy and began to see tremendous improvement. As second year (2017-2018) began, planned on making up for the previous year's poor performance by retaking the courses. I was able to walk to my classes and I believe the first few weeks I was well above the requirement to be removed from academic probation; however, as the semester progressed, my knee began to cause a lot of painful problems. There were many times where I would have full muscle spasms and I would have to go to the ARC therapy zone to receive an hour session until the pain subsided. This pattern continued throughout the entire semester and on some days I would be unable to attend classes which greatly hindered my ability to perform well. This affected my overall GPA, making it unable to meet the requirement to be taken off of academic probation and thus, resulting in my requirement to withdraw for a minimum of one year. On the bright side, my knee is fully healed and should pose no problems here on out and this leads me to my academic plan.