Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To: The Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Kalena Adames and I am a first-year student in the faculty of Arts and Science. I am appealing a credit standing for the following courses: BIOL 110 (Fall, 2018), MUSC 171 (Fall, 2018), and PHGY 170 (Fall, 2018).

During the Fall term of my 2018-2019 studies, my academic performance was negatively impacted as a result of severe mental health illnesses that were beyond my control. The emergence of my extenuating circumstances arose at the beginning of October 2018 and have persisted to the present day (April 2019). Due to severity of these circumstances, I experienced a variety of mental and physical symptoms. These symptoms included: constant fatigue, decreased appetite, social isolation, frequent headaches, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. As a result, this caused to me to fall behind on my work, miss deadlines and submit my assignments in late, and perform poorly on tests due to lack of motivation and poor concentration. Since BIOL 110 and PHGY 170 were online courses, I lacked the self-discipline to keep up with the pace of online learning. Also, since MUSC 171 was an on-campus course, I was unable to leave my room as a result of my depression, anxiety, and constant fatigue. In order to deal with the extenuating circumstances, I consulted with a personal counsellor at Queen's Student Accessibility Services (QSAS) on a monthly basis starting at the beginning of December. Despite the fact that my extenuating circumstances occurred prior to the drop deadline of the term, I did not drop the course prior to the Week 8 drop deadline because I felt that I had an adequate amount of time to salvage my grades (as the extenuating circumstances occurred at the beginning of October).

In the case that my appeal is granted, In order to achieve academic success, I will make personal adjustments in order to succeed in my future studies. As my extenuating circumstances are ongoing, I will continue to meet with a personal counselor regularly over the 2019 Spring and Summer terms, as well as continue to meet with my QSAS personal counsellor when school resumes in the Fall. I have also taken it upon myself to enrol in two online courses for the Summer term, as this will make up for the two courses that I dropped during the 2019 Winter term, as well as increase my culminative GPA.

Sincerely,
Kalena Adames