Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Academic),

My name is Omar Elmor and I am a recent graduate from the Queen's Undergraduate Philosophy program. I am writing to appeal the 21-day deadline for academic appeals post-graduation. For my supporting documentation, at the recommendation of my Academic Advisor, I have included some of the emails demonstrating the different routes I have tried, and a letter of support from the Head of the Philosophy department. I can request and provide professional documentation from my psychiatrist with Student Wellness if necessary.

At the time of my graduation, I was experiencing an ongoing mental health crisis and had received accommodations for four ongoing incomplete courses. I was not aware that I had already graduated without these courses, was focused on pushing through coursework, and was overwhelmed with the ongoing mental health issues.

From January to September, my mental health was on a steady downward trend, and I am still struggling to take care of myself today. The stress associated with finishing the final year of my undergraduate degree through repeated lockdowns had a severe impact on my mental health. Specific circumstances related to the lockdowns triggered trauma from my childhood, and my living situation rendered former coping strategies that I used throughout my undergrad to work and mitigate stress inaccessible.

With the persistent pressure of overdue deadlines, I was under chronic stress and was unable to bring myself back to a healthy place on my own. I worked with my psychiatrist, Dr. McNevin, at Student Wellness Services, and multiple psychotherapists (both at Student Wellness and external to Queen's). Throughout the summer, I worked with Dr. Sylvester at Student Wellness on exposure therapy to help tackle my course work.

The support I received from Student Accessibility Services and Student Wellness helped to alleviate some stress, but I hit a mental health low in late summer that was triggered by a member of the Philosophy department (a PhD candidate and first-time teacher). This instructor's behaviour was inappropriate and directly caused me mental harm, impacted my ability to stay on track with exposure therapy, and diminished my ability to work on their course and the other courses I was working to complete concurrently. Revisiting these experiences, necessary in my reaching out, has been incredibly emotionally daunting and exhausting.

Despite the emotional obstacles (e.g. defeated self-esteem after interactions with the instructor, debilitating apprehension about phone calls and meetings related to what happened, long-standing social anxiety), I have explored many different routes to look into my options moving forward over the past four months. I have had several meetings and email exchanges with my Accommodations Officer, an Ombudsperson, Academic Advising, and the Head of the Philosophy Department. Each person was sympathetic to my experiences, but I was repeatedly told that the issue was either outside of their jurisdiction or that nothing could be done because I had already graduated. Every time this happened, I felt defeated and took time to regroup before renewing my efforts. Especially since completing my last deadline at the end of August, I have been taking my time with my mental health. However, the Head of the Philosophy Department, Dr. Christine Sypnowich, let me know that she would try and support whatever appeals or accommodations could be made. I have been pushing through to try and find the right person to talk to about this, and only discovered I could appeal to waive the deadline on my last meeting with Academic Advising. This meeting was last Tuesday, October 26.

I wish to waive the deadline so that I may appeal the two Fs on my transcript from this past summer -- these grades stand out and I did not need these courses to graduate. Moving forward, I am taking time off from school to focus on my health and will be reconsidering graduate school in Philosophy as a career path. However, I would like to keep my options open and believe it is important that opportunities are not closed off because of issues with a first-time professor and mental health crises during the pandemic. Therefore, I would immensely appreciate if the 21-day deadline was waived.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Omar Elmor