Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

My name is William Berry and I am writing you with respect to the Requirement to Withdraw for Three Years placed on my account. In particular I wish to have this block on my account removed so I can enrolling in a reduced capacity this coming fall semester. These past few years have been mentally challenging for me in many respects and have negatively impacted my success at school in
direct and quantifiable ways. When planning out my appeal letter I consulted the Appeals Guidance video found in the Academic appeals section and found the provided checklist to apply to my situation in all respects. To provide some backstory, my father was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in the last few years, and more recently during the Christmas break of 2018/2019 was additionally diagnosed with a particularly aggressive and rare type of thyroid cancer. Although this cancer designated a poorly differentiated carcinoma did not hugely change my fathers prognosis, as Alzheimer's is a terminal condition in its self, the resulting surgery to remove as much of the cancer as they could has hastened his physical and cognitive decline. This put tremendous mental stress onto me and quite clearly severely impacted my motivation to go to class and exasperated my previously diagnosed mood disorder. Referring back to the checklist, I believe that I quite clearly satisfy the checklist provided in the video. Firstly, I believe the terminal diagnosis of a parent is clearly an extenuating circumstance in which I have no control. Secondly, I have demonstrated that these events effected me during the course timeline. Thirdly, I believe the diagnosis of Alzheimer's and most recently aggressive Cancer are non-trivial and can be deemed serious circumstances. Fourthly, it can be deduced that the immediate family member's, of those diagnosed with terminal illness would feel real impacts on their abilities. And finally, I will provide documentation in regards to both my own mood disorder diagnosis and my fathers to document the accuracy of my statements. I do however acknowledge that I must make changes to ensure success going forward. It is clear that I cannot simply repeat the same exact mistakes over and over. To remedy this I have decided with my doctor Dr. Phillip Choptiany to up my anti-depressant dose from 10mg to 20mg and I can say honestly I feel that I am a sounder mind as of late and feel much more even keeled as a result. As my Doctor has put it, it is often a case of honing in the particular dosage for each individual patient. In addition to this I am actively looking into seeking regular counselling sessions in Kingston, although whether through school resources or otherwise remains to determined (I will explore school resources as well). Lastly I want to end by saying that I sincerely desire to continue my schooling. Getting my life back on track is of paramount importance to me and I do not believe withdrawing for three years or one year for that matter will have a positive impact on me. These family events have been traumatic for me and it has taken me to time to adjust but I do believe whole heartedly that I can succeed at school. Whether that be through a significantly reduced course load as a part time student or otherwise, I simply desire to be given an opportunity at righting the ship as it were, and make progress on my degree once again. Below I will detail my academic plan for next year.