Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: DOUG HEATON
623A JOHNSON STREET
KINGSTON ON K7L 2A3
April 3, 2019
Associate Dean
Faculty of Arts and Science
Queen¿¿s University
Kingston ON

Re: Academic Appeal ¿¿ Undergrad ¿¿ Douglas James Heaton - 15djh9


I am appealing to drop FILM 340 (Winter, 2019).

On July 27, 2018 my birthday, Chinny Garikaparthi was killed in a car accident in the Bahamas. Chinny and I met on our first day at Queen¿¿s in Watt¿¿s Hall where our rooms were side by side and we shared a bathroom. We were 'canmates'. We became great friends and continued to live together through second year on Johnson Street. He died the day before he was to return to Queens.

I struggled my way through first term, alternating between feeling nothing, anxiety, a constant weight on my chest and sadness. I spoke with Chinny¿¿s parents many times about him and our friendship, our residence experience, and about the house and the organization of his personal belongings, attending and then proceeding to speak at the memorial. I did not cope well. I wanted to manage on my own without help because I thought I should be able to. I managed to complete all my courses, however my marks were lower than the averages i had accumulated over my first two years of study. I think the thing that made this possible was being on the baseball team and keeping busy along with constantly being with friends. It helped me manage for a time, but it wasn't able to make me feel better.

Second term did not start well. I had seen my Toronto doctor on December 20th. I did not socialize, I withdrew from friends and was overwhelmed. It was more of the wrong approach. I fell behind on all my work. I never thought about dropping a course because I was functioning worse in second term than in first. All the grief was bottled up and it was starting to show. I was angry, frustrated and constantly overwhelmed. Film 340 was scheduled once a week on Wednesday 6:30-9:30pm. All my other classes were multiple times a week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with one class on Thursday morning. The assignment due dates for Film 340 fell after my other course due dates. I was not completing those prior assignments on time and so I did not get to the Film 340 work.

I went home the weekend of February 2nd and reading week. In between I saw the Crisis Counsellor on February 5th. I have had counselling again on March 11th, March 27th and April 3rd at the Student Wellness Centre. At the March 11th meeting we discussed dropping Film 340 as I was so far behind in it and that the better option was to spend the time remaining on my other 4 courses. I had an Academic Counselling meeting on March 29th. This meeting was to ensure that i would still be on pace to graduate in four years. I am still on pace to finish in four years.

I have been home the weekend of March 22nd and March 29th. The counsellors encouraged me to talk about how I feel, to talk to my parents and to go home. They suggested personal care routines, seeing friends, making sure I got out of the house, exercising, cooking and eating well, and breaking work down into small chunks. But I am still overwhelmed by the big assignments and essays and the fact that all the due dates are now. This spring and summer in Toronto I am going to get some grief counselling.