Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Appeal Form- Matthew Lumsden


21- Day Exemption

To Whom It May Concern:

I am requesting that the 21-day appeal deadline be waved on the grounds that I was unable to reach my psychiatrist in order to receive documentation for my extenuating circumstances in that time period. My psychiatrist, Dr. Simon O¿¿Brien, works out of the Providence Care mental health facility. Due to the high volume of patients that he sees (especially at this time of year), Dr. O¿¿Brien has a secretary who schedules his appointments for him. I contacted her multiple times in the beginning of January in order to set up an appointment to discuss the matter. However, she was not able to get back to me for a number of weeks for one reason or another, despite me calling her numerous times.

To circumvent this issue, I opted to email Dr. O¿¿Brien myself. The first email that I sent to him (attached) was on January 21st, which was only 9 days after the grades were finalized on my transcript. After not hearing back from him via email for a number of days, I called his secretary again to explain the situation. She notified me that the mental health facility has an extremely tightly sealed firewall protection, and thus the system has a tendency to reject emails received from unfamiliar addresses. She predicted that this must have been the case with my email to Dr. O¿¿Brien, and he verified that he ha not received an email from me. So, I emailed him again (attached), and he replied to me on February 9th, 2015.

Had it not been for the technical errors, and the difficulty of reaching Dr. O¿¿Brien independently, I would have been able to submit my appeal form prior to the closing of the 21-day window.

Appeal:

I am appealing the mark that I received in GNDS 335, taught by Jane Tolmie, be changed from a C to a ¿credit received¿¿ on my transcript. I am requesting this change on the grounds that there were extenuating circumstances related to my mental health, which prevented me from being able to perform to the best of my academic ability.

I was previously diagnosed with depression, and had been taking medication for it. However, beginning in late September to early October, the medication started to become less efficacious. The depressive symptoms came back, and I began finding it very difficult to get out of bed, or to motivate myself to do school work. I have never previously had significant issues with getting work done. Deadlines have never been an issue, and this is reflected in my status on the Dean¿¿s list for the past two years of university. However, this fall, I began handing in nearly every single assignment late for each class. I began finding it difficult to motivate myself to go to class, complete my readings, or to speak when in class. I am typically a very outspoken person, who is a large contributor to class discussion. However, during first semester, I remained very quiet, and did not have the same enthusiasm for school that characterized my commitment in the past. Professor Tolmie took note of my symptoms of depression in an email exchange in October. I previously had met Professor Tolmie at an Art-sci open house. I was the DSC president of my department last year, and because of this, I was selected to represent the Gender Studies department when promoting the program to potential incoming first year students. Professor Tolmie worked along side me, and she was able to see my usual outgoing, voracious, passionate side. When we began an email exchange in October, she took note of the fact that I was showing symptoms of ¿being off¿¿.

Rather than seeking academic accommodations, I resolved to see the resident psychiatrist at the providence care mental health facility (I was unable to get an appointment with Dr. O¿¿Brien). She placed me on another medication, which also did not help significantly in any way. I missed each of my follow up appointments with her due to my inability to get out of bed (a manifestation from depression symptoms that were getting much worse).

The reasons as to why there is a disparity between the A- that I received in each of my other classes, and the C that I received in GNDS 335, is due to the timing of the projects in Professor Tolmie¿¿s class. Her evaluations were heavily weighted towards the end of the semester, which was a time in which my symptoms were at their worst. She also carried a much more strict late penalty system than my other professors, which meant that when my depression symptoms were so severe that I could not hand in an assignment on time, my mark was impacted far more greatly in this class than in the others. I handed in all three major assignments late (totaling 70 of my mark), by an amount of time ranging from five days to two weeks. Professor Tolmie penalizes 5 per day. So, I lost well over 25 of my grade on each of those assignments. Additionally, I was forced to improvise a 10 class presentation, because I was unable to take the time to prepare any notes. I received a C on the presentation. Finally, the last 20 of my mark was composed of class participation, and attendance. I missed a significant amount of classes, which also greatly impacted this mark. 100 of mark was impacted by my depression, and this is reflected in my significantly lower mark in this class.

When I became desperate to combat by depression over the winter holidays, I took a 3- hour train ride back to Kingston for a day on December 22nd to see Dr. O¿¿Brien. He prescribed me a new anti-depressant, which I have now been taking for a month and a half. It has greatly improved my symptoms with depression. I am also meeting with Dr. O¿¿Brien to receive a referral to speak with a counsellor in the Kingston community about my depression. Through these steps that I am taking, I am confident that my depression will not have such a disabling impact on my academic and social success like it did during the first semester.