Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

This academic appeal is about extending my incomplete marks (Winter 2021 semester) in three courses for one last semester (Fall 2021). My goal is to graduate before the end of 2021, and all my professors support my decision to appeal. These courses include PHIL 330 with Dr. Mark Smith, PHIL 412 with Dr. Dolleen Manning, PHIL 510 directed studies with Dr. Jacqueline Davies. I do not want to ruin my entire 4 year undergraduate academic progress due to one challenging year. I will be working on five classes (3 from last winter semester, 2 new classes in fall semester). I had a fourth class (PHIL 256) that was incomplete, and I want to appeal to drop that one because I am replacing it with another. I fell too behind to complete PHIL 256, but I have conviction that I can finish the other courses this Fall 2021.

I have suffered many setbacks in 2021. To elaborate, pandemic isolation exacerbated a really toxic relationship from 2020-2021 (the guy is currently in jail). I suffered from minor bouts of substance abuse due to that. I finally escaped the relationship once I found a healthy support system to hold me accountable, and I may seek counselling for my issues.
Another issue is that I have had to work minimum wage to support myself without parental financial support, and I have lost my health insurance this year as well. I have had experiences of relatives outside Canada catching COVID-19 (and family needing to raise healthcare money for that and other major health issues).
Furthermore, I have been facing transphobia and addressing lifelong trauma from it. Internal and external stigma/violence has been difficult, but I have taken the important first steps to address my gender dysphoria. I have also encountered anti-Asian pandemic racism. The accumulation of all of these events have had drastic strains on my mental wellbeing, which in turn, impacted my academic performance. Asking for help has been a huge invisible barrier in the past, especially given my cultural background where any weakness and setback is a personal fault.

My solutions include talking to academic advising, SASS, seeking mental health support/ diagnosis/ potential medication. Another important solution is having regular in-person meetings with my professors, which will make deadline accountability easier; I require interpersonal pressure to finish my work.