Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello Dr. Jenn Stephenson,

My name is Liam Bushell and I am appealing to drop ECON 280 for the fall semester of 2020. The extenuating circumstance I experienced this semester was a close friend of mine, Cordelia Dingle, taking her own life. This tragic event happened a few days prior to her service and funeral, which took place on the 24th of October. Cordelia and I grew up spending our summers at Lac Manitou and later went on to teach canoeing at the local day camp together for two summers. This was the first time I had dealt with the death of someone I had known well and instead of expressing my emotions and addressing my sadness, I internalized and suppressed them. I spent the first week and a half after her death in Toronto, spending time with the Manitou community and visiting friends and family to discuss fond memories we had of her and the sudden, unprecedented nature of her death. In early November, I returned to Kingston and soon became depressed and unmotivated to focus on my courses, as every time I engaged my brain in academic actions, I found my mind drifting to think about her. This was around November 2nd, which was the last day to drop courses without academic penalty. At this point, I was not considering dropping any of my courses. I was behind on one small assignment in POLS 384 and I was late to submit an assignment for Econ 280. I had grades in the A¿¿s for both these courses so dropping the courses was not something I considered. At most, I was fearful I would get a bad mark on the two aforementioned assignments. Moving forward from November 2nd, I had convinced myself that I was going to be able to catch up on my missing assignments, but I was depressed and kept putting my work off until the next day and by late November I had not done much work to catch up, although I was trying to force myself to work. My professors, including Professor Hageman for Econ 280 were very accommodating and gave me extensions or let me submit assignments as soon as I could. On November 28th I came back to Toronto to try and be more productive and talk through my feelings with my parents. After a few long conversations with my parents, I let my emotions come to the surface and began to accept the death of my friend. I then started feeling the immediate stress of being behind in nearly all my courses and planned to catch up before exams. The reason Econ 280 is the only course I am appealing to drop is that it was the last one that I was going to try and catch up on. I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to complete assignments in my other courses and was not able to complete the coursework for ECON 280 before the semester end. I believe the conversations I had with my parents significantly improved my mental health and I am feeling far better than I was during November. I have promised my parents that if I am ever feeling overwhelmed or depressed like I was this semester, I will visit a psychologist to work on techniques to cope with my emotions. I am hoping you will allow me to drop this course based on the extenuating circumstances I experienced this semester.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Liam Bushell