Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Dr. Jenn Stephenson,
Hello, my name is Mackenzie Gray and I am in my fourth year as an Arts and Science undergraduate student at Queens. I am reaching out to you today to appeal for a credit standing in ANAT 380 and PSYC 333 (both Winter, 2021).
Throughout my life, I have been suffering from undiagnosed mental health issues that have affected my studies in the past, but with the added stress of a global pandemic, my untreated anxiety and depression became even worse. I have been experiencing extenuating circumstances regarding my mental health over the recent school year due to the combined stress of the pandemic, being an essential worker during lockdowns, and maintaining my schoolwork. I have to continue working throughout the pandemic to afford school and my living expenses, which was putting my family at risk. To keep my family safe, I had to move out and the only place I could afford to live is 2 hours away from my family, making it impossible to see them during the pandemic and multiple lockdowns. Additionally, I am taking a full course load because I decided to do part-time studies in 2019 so I need to maintain a full course load so that I am not too behind and can graduate within 5 years. All of these stressors combined with my fear of going to work with the prevalence of COVID-19 in Ontario made my mental health decline rapidly and directly affect my studies throughout this past school year. These issues began to present themselves at the end of September, and by late November my mental health had deteriorated to a point where I was unable to keep up with my studies and my grades were being significantly impacted. My mental health continued to suffer throughout the winter, and I had reached a very low point by February. Specifically, my mental health issues greatly impacted my ability to concentrate and study for exams, as I began to suffer from intense intrusive thoughts that derail my concentration and make it hard for me to focus on the content in front of me. I have also been suffering from anxiety attacks that have been so intense that I cannot continue any work I have in front of me, and I have had to call out of work due to this stress. As I mentioned previously, February was a new low for me as I began to reach a point of burnout and tried my best to juggle the responsibilities I had in all of my classes, but PSYC 333 and ANAT 380 both suffered significantly as a result. I had reached out to Professor Pukall about these issues and she walked me through the steps of requesting an academic extension for my midterm, but unfortunately, my mental health had not improved in that short time. My anxiety was particularly bad during exam season, as my dad who is at high risk for catching COVID-19 had gotten incredibly sick and we were worried he had caught it. I had a very bad anxiety attack during my ANAT 380 exam which caused me to be unable to complete it, which caused me even more stress knowing the exam was worth 30% of my overall grade. I reached out to my professors with no response, and my overall grade dropped around 20%. I also performed poorly during my PSYC 333 exam due to this anxiety and did poorly on that one as well. Anxiety attacks combined with intrusive thoughts increased stress and feeling like a failure due to my mental health genuinely affected my performance in these courses, and I believe if I hadn??t been suffering from these issues, my performance in these courses would have been much better.
Due to extensive support and encouragement from my friends and family, I have finally reached out to mental health professionals to receive a proper diagnosis and treatment plan. However, this process is taking even longer in the pandemic and I have been placed on waitlists for appointments to receive referrals for a diagnosis. I was finally able to speak with a psychiatrist through the help of CAMH, and I have been recently diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder with Anxious Distress due to the fact I have suffered from these issues for much of my life and I am very happy and relieved to finally have a concrete diagnosis that will allow me to come up with a proper treatment plan with the help of doctors and therapists. However, I was diagnosed on July 21st and due to issues because of the pandemic, the paperwork has yet to be sent to my family doctor and therefore, I do not have a copy of my official diagnosis to submit with my appeal. However, I do have additional documents given to me by other doctors that I will be submitting, and although they do not go as in-depth as the paperwork I wanted to submit, they still indicate this has been something I have been suffering with for a significant amount of time and I hope they will be sufficient for my appeal. Additionally, I can submit these additional documents with my official diagnosis shortly if needed, as I am hoping to have the paperwork within the coming weeks. Therefore I have waited so long to submit my appeal, as I wanted to make sure I had everything to submit come time for the appeal due date, but the pandemic is making that extremely difficult. I recognize my circumstances and I am doing the absolute best I can to get myself help so that my mental health is no longer a barrier to succeeding in my studies.