Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Appeal Letter
Dear Associate Dean,

I appeal for the CR for STAT263 enrolled in fall 2020. I am a third-year arts and science student who is currently pursuing my BAH degree in Applied Economics. This year is a challenging year for everyone, and it is also the most challenging year of my life.
I have suffered from domestic abuse for a long time. Before the fall semester began, I stayed at home. From June to August, the situation worsens, I think maybe because of the COVID, and everybody stays at home and can't vent to their destructive emotions. The mental and physical abuse are a nightmare for me. I was so scared, and I don't know how to fight back. And the last time I can't bear it anymore, and I called the police. To keep me safe, police take away, give a no-contact restriction, and lay charges to who should be responsible for that. During that time, I thought that is the end.

However, I felt I had physical pain in my back and a sleep disorder for the whole of August. I lost 15kg for only one month. To begin with, I did not know I have an illness. But later, I feel I can't move, can't focus, can't control my consciousness, and dying. My friends took me to the clinic right away on August 31, 2020. Dr. Ali diagnosed me with Post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD), and he gave me the medicine to treat my illness. Also, he referred me to the phycologist Dr. Houyuan Luo for treatment. Dr. Houyuan Luo also diagnosed me with PTSD and dissociation, and he keeps giving me cognitive behaviour therapy treatment.

Because of the illness, and I lay on my bed every day till the end of September. Most of my workload on my courses has already gone far away, and I should catch up harder. Luckily, with Accessibility Service Advisor Caroline Teske's help, I was able to submit the assignment with extra time and have a long test time. The accommodation helped me deal with my focus problem and lagged workload. However, I still quickly get tired and can only get up during the afternoon when I have intensive work or read something. Some vocabularies or relative scenes are easy to recall and bring me back to the traumatic thoughts. Every time I would sob and shiver for a long time to get chill down. Then I can work. Sometimes if the scene is so real, I will feel I want to run away and unable to do anything. If I didn't control this feeling, I would follow the doctor's suggestion to have progressive muscle relaxation training and take a sleeping pill and have a good sleep to reset. The illness is torture for me. Also, even when I calm down, I can't focus and can't feel the real world because of the dissociation. I want to recover as soon as possible in that case, I can be normal to deal with my academic workload. But my doctor told me that the recovery takes time, and I don't push myself too much and have a good rest every day. I hope I will feel better soon because the symptoms are tormenting, making me feel hopeless and fearful.

Luckily, with a solid background in Mathematics, I achieved an A+ on my term work on STAT263 and Professor also really likes me. However, upon the final exam, there are two parts of the Final exam. Part one on December 11, 2019, is doing good and is A+. However, when I was doing Part two on December 12, 2019, I suffered a severe panic attack. I can't breathe, my body was shaking, I was unable to think, and I am afraid everything. I dragged my sick body through the exam with difficulty. On December 13, 2019, I went to the doctor and immediately got the life-saving medicine to prevent this from happening again. I contact Professor Charles Molson and let him know what I have been suffering influenced my performance on Part two final exam. Professor suggested me to speak with the Academic Advisor. I talked to Kathryn Vilela, and Kathryn told me to do this appeal. She claimed that based on the existing policy, we are unable to arrange another final exam for you since you have already written it. Charles Molson also showed sympathy and claimed that he would support my appeal in the future when my final score was released. When my final score was released, I found that the total score is B+, which means the Part two exam has dramatically negatively influenced it. In other words, I think the sudden illness negatively impacted my academic performance. The final score can't represent my average academic ability.

I hope you will understand my situation and approve my appeal. Thank you very much

Best,

Zheng Li
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