Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Appeal Letter: I appreciate the Associate Dean's time to review my appeal. However, I would like to appeal the decision. I was unable to attach the Binocular Vision Assessment report because it is too large to upload in the documentation portal. Please let me know if you would prefer, I can hand in a physical copy or try to send it through email. This document reveals the eye-related injury I experienced due to the physical abuses when I visited my family overseas (summer of 2018), which affected my focus. I understand that 2 years has passed since I took POLS 347. The reason why I did not try to appeal the grade earlier is because of mental health stigma in my culture that prevented me from accessing mental health resources during the time I took the course. Professor Sani never replied to my emails throughout the semester, therefore I did not email him about my concern and instead decided to retake the course in my 4th or 5th year to improve my grade. I did not take retake it in my 4th year due to deciding to finish my minor first. Surprisingly, the course was not offered this year (my 5th year).
I visited my family overseas again in the summer of 2019, and I was told to not talk about the event and move on. Essentially, I suppressed my mental health struggles during the 2018-2019 fall-winter terms as I did not have the opportunity to address what had happened to me, thereby I tried to ignore what had happened which backlashed in the fall of 2019. In the 2019-2020 term, I lost about 20 kg from the built-up stress I was experiencing (76 kg-57kg). I would like to clarify that I was mentally struggling in my 3rd year due to extenuating circumstances beyond my control that affected my performance in these two courses. Additionally, I did not choose to drop the course before the deadline because I was taking 4 courses and dropping it would mean I would be a part-time student. If I were to choose to only take 3 courses, it would have threatened the possibility of mending my relationship with my family and receiving financial support. My family made it clear that it was not an option to drop the course. Therefore, I pushed myself passed the capacity my mental health could handle, beyond my control, which is why my performance was compromised.
It was extremely difficult to motivate myself to seek support, and to even confront and explain to my parents that I was unable to do well in the course because of mental health struggles. To them, mental health can be addressed solely with religion. Additionally, I did not want to include this and be too explicit in the first Appeal as it is very personal and uncomfortable to express, but during the winter semester (2020) when I took POLS 392, I experienced sexual assault by a Queen's student. Someone I knew who had a similar experience with the same person approached me to file a lawsuit against the student (who graduated last year). She contacted Kingston Police, who contacted me, and asked me to be a witness. I am not sure how to provide evidence/documents of this event. I only received phone calls from Kingston Police. I can provide text messages of the student filing the lawsuit. While she dropped the lawsuit as it was mentally straining for her as well, it was a stressful time for me, especially the fact that I had not yet dealt with the physical abuse I experienced. Additionally, going through a lawsuit exacerbated the trauma as it kept reminding me of the event. During this time (February-March), my family made the decision that I would not go back to visit them that year due to the nature of our relationship. Upon receiving this news (I was not going to see them for a while, filing a sexual assault lawsuit against a student), I was also faced with deciding whether to consider a Pass grade for my courses as we were offered the choice to do so due to the pandemic. However, I discussed with many peers aspiring to go to law school that a Pass grade could reflect badly on a student. So I panicked and chose not to do it. It was my mistake for listening to others. I constantly look back and wished that I chose to replace my grade with a Pass. Once the pandemic hit, I did not see my family for 1.5 years. Instead, the separation allowed me to focus on my mental health, gain the mental health support I needed (from Mrs. Drakes), which reflects the exponential growth in my academic abilities in my 4th and 5th year.
While the Associate Dean explains that there is not enough information from my POLS 347 instructor to warrant changing my grade, I have added email attachments of repeatedly sending my professor emails with no replies. I also completed all the course work and sent several emails to ask if I should submit my final essay in the Macintosh-Corry politics dropbox, but I received no reply and I was focusing on writing my other exams. I had a meeting with a mental health professional at Queen's in March of 2020 (Accessibility Services Advisor Michelle Vieira). I explained that I was struggling with mental health, insomnia (to be transparent, nightmares of the event), and eye-sight problems as demonstrated in the Binocular Vision Assessment. While taking POLS 392, I was recovering from the first sexual assault experience. My closest friends, or who I thought they were, enabled it to happen. I was unable to explain this experience to family as being sexually active is religiously (Islam) and culturally taboo (my family lives in an Islamic country). While the Associate Dean explains that the POLS 392 instructor has shown that my grades were consistent and were not impacted by my circumstance, I am not sure how the instructor can assume this. I was going through very personal circumstances that overlapped and I was unable to do as well as I am mentally and academically able to. My knowledge about my mental health has grown, knowing that it is an iterative process that allows me to mitigate my anxiety.