Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom this may concern,
My name is Cameron Bett, a 4th year Film student on the basketball team. I??m currently taking Franke Burke??s course ??European Narrative 305? this semester. I only chose the course due to its availability during the online learning we had for the first month and half of the semester. Everything was going well during this time as it was very easy to catch up on recorded lectures that I missed because of basketball training and games. However, ever since returning to online learning I haven??t been able to catch myself up or even find a foot in the course due to physical strain from basketball practice and my overall mental health at this current time. My grandmother passed away in early January and when me and my parents went back to England for the funeral, I was subjected to seeing my own brother??s suicide attempt on Opioid medication, which left me very empty to a point that I truly stopped caring about my family, friends, school, and even basketball. My family is everything to me and seeing two of the most prominent people in my life struggle is making me tear up as I type this. Mr. Burke recently emailed me after I reached out saying I would miss his next class due to a basketball conflict. He said he doesn??t see a way of me passing the course based on other assignments submitted. Honestly, it would of helped to of gotten this email before the drop date but I do respect him for being honest with me at the moment. He even said he would write a letter to help speed this process up if I??m able to drop the class fully with no academic penalty. In my first year, my academic growth was super slow, and I didn??t learn much. Going into my 2nd and 3rd year I made a promise to improve on this and put in more work on and off the court. However, this semester has truly taken a huge toll on the mental side of things. I recently got COVID as well which has left me missing more class and information to help me succeed in the course. I??m not writing this to make you feel bad for my situation, it just feels like this is the only way to get my point across on how hard this semester has been for me. My other courses are going well as they don??t conflict with my basketball time, yet Mr. Burkes course has been the only one I??ve truly struggled with. I only found out about my grade 3 days ago from his email as he does not post any grades or notes to OnQ. All I??m asking is that I can drop this course with no academic penalty, so I can save my GPA which would furthermore save my scholarship to Queens. Money is currently becoming an issue with my family ever since the funeral so having an opportunity to save another 3 thousand dollars off tuition would be a life saver.
Thank you for your time,
Cameron Bett
20118824