Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Academic):

I am a first year student and appealing to drop CLST 150-001 ?? Warfare in the Ancient World (Winter 2022).

As you are aware, Queen??s announced on December 16th, 2021 that it would move all courses to online until February 28th, 2022. Prior to this time, I had never truly experienced online learning as I did a gap year in 2020/21 and worked full time during the pandemic. In January of 2022, I began my online schooling at home alone in my small room. I sat at my computer for hours on end trying to learn the material. As the weeks went by, I found myself completely stressed, anxious, isolated and overwhelmed trying to teach myself 5 university courses at once.

By the end of January, I began having considerable physical and psychological symptoms that impacted my ability to learn online. For the first time in my life, I was not sleeping well, I had significant stomach issues, and I had dizzy spells. I also had a constant feeling that I would throw up. I started taking Pepo on a daily basis and I went to see my family doctor. He indicated it was stress due to the pandemic and isolation and that it would pass.

My stress and symptoms continued and worsened in February but I truly believed everything would be better once I was able to move back to Kingston and resume in person learning. I??ve never been one to feel stress or anxiety so this caught me completely off-guard and I did not know how to cope.

I moved back to Kingston the first week of March and the deadline to drop a course was only 3 days after returning to in person learning. I was relieved to no longer be confined to my bedroom and have the ability to interact again with students and friends again. I wanted to give myself and the course a chance. I really thought my stress and symptoms would magically subside and I would be able to cope and manage the balance of CLST 150 but that did not happen.

After the deadline to withdraw, I realized I had been incredibly naïve and too optimistic about my condition. I reached out to my Professor and communicated the personal extenuating circumstances effecting my ability to complete the course. Professor Collivicchi was very understanding and told me the best thing to do was to submit an appeal for a late drop and that he would support it. Attached to this appeal is his email dated April 7th, 2022.

While I was registered in other courses, CLST 150 was most impacted by my condition. This course content was posted videos. There was no real time learning or interaction with students or TAs. It is also a course that is extremely heavy content and it remained on line after in person was to resume. The other courses proved to be much more conducive to online learning and I realized four courses was the maximum I could handle teaching myself with the isolation and symptoms I was experiencing.

There is another factor that I would appreciate consideration in my appeal. I was awarded the Procter & Gamble Scholarship (2000 per year for total of 8000). To maintain my scholarship, I must pass all my courses. If I am not allowed a late drop for CLST 150, I will lose my scholarship and this will have a devastating financial impact. I am sick about this and do hope you can consider it as well. I am attaching the proof of scholarship dated July 20th, 2021 together with the condition to pass all courses.

Presently my health has improved and while I do not wish to go into more details of my circumstances, I hope I have provided sufficient information to allow a late drop. The pandemic and shift to remote learning and subsequent impact on my physical and mental health was out of my control. I can assure you it had debilitating effect on me and my ability to complete the course and miss the deadline. I have learned much from my first year of university and I will no longer try and deal with everything on my own. I will seek help and support at an early stage and will be acutely aware of any academic deadlines.

Sincerely,
Thomas Davies