Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Associate Dean of Studies,

I am writing to you today in hopes to appeal for an Aegrotat grade in my GNDS 440 course from the Fall/Winter term that was extended to an Incomplete for the Summer term. Unfortunately, there were many reasons that this course in particular posed difficulties for me. These include barriers in accessing my academic accommodations, a course environment/content that proved triggering of personal past traumas, the loss of a professional mentor with whom I was working on my final project and physical health issues debilitating me 50 of the time.

Throughout my University career at Queen¿¿s, I have had my fair share of both accommodating and unaccommodating professors, so I am very aware of the self-advocation processes necessary to access said accommodations. Unfortunately, navigating my accommodations with this specific professor proved extremely difficult. Every time I attempted to access one of my accommodations, be it a deadline extension, a class absence, or alternative assignment I was met with negative responses which I believe made it very difficult for me to engage in the course. Even after setting up an appointment with my accommodations advisor and my professor in her office, it was very clear that the barriers I was feeling were completely misunderstood and unsupported by the professor.
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Meanwhile, I was (and still am) attending weekly post-trauma therapy sessions on and off campus. The very skills I was trying to develop in post-trauma therapy, by the nature of this type of therapy, caused a heightened experience of my post-trauma responses to every day triggers (i.e. communications with this professor). Throughout this ongoing process, I have learned that a lot of my post-trauma triggers are related to feelings of helplessness, lack of support/understanding, lack of personal agency/empowerment and being silenced by those around me. Now, looking back on my semester and summer, I can understand that one of the largest barriers to pushing through and completing the remainder of this course¿¿s work was a direct result of feeling continuously retraumatized through my attempt to access my accommodations.

After the Fall semester, I made the decision to practice self-agency for the remainder of the course, while actively working towards improving my trigger-response techniques through post-trauma therapy.

During the Winter Term of this course, I began my independent practicum project under the mentorship of Kim Renders, while working with women from the Elizabeth Fry Society (a transition home for incarcerated women in the Kingston area) in order to put together a community theatre production with Kim¿¿s arts collective, Colliding Scopes. This show however, was not going up until June. Therefore, I opted to ask for an Incomplete Grade in order to stay on board with Kim for the beginning of the summer. This opportunity would allow me to have the entire show-run to reflect on in my final presentation/paper.

It was in early May when Kim contacted me, asking me to take more of an independent lead with the women at Elizabeth Fry, as she had fallen ill. Over the course of the next 6 weeks, she was diagnosed with an extremely rare, pervasive type of cancer, which led to her quick passing in June. Hearing of her death was extremely challenging for me. Not only had a lost my mentor, and a woman with whom I shared so many integral parts of my healing process with, I had also lost the bulk of what my entire year of work in this course was leading up to. Honestly at this point, the course content was so overwhelming to engage with that it caused me panic attack after panic attack throughout the summer, as I was no longer sure of my ability to graduate and this course was the main barrier standing in my way. After advice from my advisors and therapist, I made the very difficult decision to put my health and healing first, and decided it would be more beneficial for me to opt out of completing my final paper/presentation (the remaining 40 of the course), and just focus on completing the other 60 that did not have a correlation to my relationship or project with Kim.

Throughout the summer I also had another course to complete, which was much less triggering for me and was lead by a very accommodating and understanding professor. I succeeded in this course with a final grade of an A+, while still feeling able to access the accommodations necessary to be fully engaged in all course content. I hope that with this knowledge, it will be made clear to you the degree in which my triggers with GNDS 440 impacted my ability to complete the remaining 40 of the coursework.

Furthermore, over the past year I have been battling physical health issues that have impeded my ability to get out of bed/the house for about 50 of every month. Due to the unpredictable nature of my personal health condition, I have struggled with energy management and allocation. I hope that my success in my other course this summer can also act as an example of what I can accomplish when I have the mental and physical energy to do so, as I put everything I possibly could into receiving that A+ grade.

It is for all of these reasons, that writing this letter has also been a difficult process for me to engage with. Consequently, it is coming just over a month after this course end-date. My apologies for the delay in this process. I recognize that through this writing, I am sharing extremely vulnerable and personal information, but I do this in hopes that you are able to understand my story to the best of your ability.

Warm regards,

Kate Neweduk