Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello, I am writing this letter to request permission to drop PHIL 260 although it is well past the deadline to drop courses. I am seeking this appeal because my poor mental health and the online instruction method created extremely strenuous learning circumstances and I was unable to complete the course requirements as I would have if I were healthy.
Before discussing this past semester, I would like to provide some important background information about my mental health. At the start of 2020, my grandfather, whom I was very close to, passed away unexpectedly and in traumatic circumstances. After his death, my academic performance during the winter semester of 2020 was heavily impacted. The pandemic started in March and quarantine restrictions prevented me from seeing others for 6 weeks. These successive events sent me into spirals of distress which I did not want to acknowledge. I progressively avoided or hid from addressing my problems, which only made them worse. I have been depressed before in my life and having escaped it, the fear of feeling that way again was overwhelming. I know now that was a mistake.
After returning to Queen¿¿s in September 2020, I quickly became overwhelmed with online learning, and my mental health continued to decline. I could no longer ignore how I was feeling, I told my family about my situation and began searching for a mental health professional to help. Unfortunately, the process of finding such a professional was difficult and lengthy and only recently have I been able to do so.
This brings me to this past semester. For 3 out of the 4 courses I was enrolled in, I have been able to get by (which was not my goal but is a relative success for this year), PHIL 260, has been the exception. While in all classes, my mental health has impacted my ability to complete my assignments and readings, the content of PHIL 260 makes it particularly difficult under my circumstances. PHIL 260 is a course on formal logic and largely focuses on the symbolization of arguments into sentential logic, then analyzing the symbolizations depending on circumstance. It feels like writing code for software, and there are objective answers. This is drastically different from the assignments in the other courses I was taking. I managed to write my major papers in my other courses but was extremely unfamiliar with both the content and form of evaluation in PHIL 260. These factors when combined with my symptoms of depression compounded to limit my academic ability, particularly when online instruction is considered. I do not blame my professor for my struggles in this way, but rather the nature of online schooling itself. Without the more defined structure of in-person classes and face-to-face support, I couldn¿¿t succeed in this course. I didn¿¿t recognize how my depression was truly impacting my ability to complete this course adequately until after the deadline to drop courses had passed.
I am working with my therapist, family doctor and parents to complete an assessment and develop a treatment plan so that when I return to Queen¿¿s in September I am healthy and capable of participating fully.

Attached to this letter is documentation from my therapist supporting this appeal.



James McGilvray
20184246
May 11, 2021