Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this letter to appeal the University??s decision to suspend me from course enrollment for a period of one year. This decision was made as a consequence of being on academic probation for a year and not receiving a cGPA of 1.60 or over after a reassessment occurred once I had completed an additional 16 credits. I would like to begin by explaining who I am and how I have landed myself in this situation.

At the beginning of the 2020 school year, I was an ambitious kid excited for the new opportunities Queen??s University had to offer. It was my first year of University and I knew that I was going to have to start strong. I was nervous, excited, anxious, exuberant, and terrified. At first, things were difficult to say the least. Getting accustomed to the OnQ website took approximately 2 weeks and I was studying from home because my family did not have 10,000 laying around for me to live on campus for no reason, as school was entirely online. This led me to become extremely isolated and feeling left out. I did not have easy access to meet new people in my program/courses whom with which I could go to for study support etc, the content was not engaging at all, as most of it was designed in less than a year due to Covid (except for one course I took named ASCX101), and the asynchronous model did not work for someone like myself who struggles without structure. All of these factors compiled with the economic and emotional toll Covid and its lockdowns had on me, made life extremely stressful and my motivation and ability to do well in school had diminished.
Second year started off to a great start. Up until reading week in the fall, things were going relatively well in terms of my academics. I had taken FILM110 and was quickly falling in love with the course content, and I felt at home with the people who were in the program. Unfortunately things began to go downhill for me in my personal life during this time. My father and I had an ongoing conflict where we did not speak for over a month. From the time period in which me and my father stopped communicating, mid-October to early-December, my mental and physical well-being along with my academics began to rapidly decline. I became horribly depressed, and I felt useless, incompetent, worthless, shameful, unmotivated, miserable, and just about every other synonym for ?bad??. As if the stress from being on academic probation and the pain caused from my on-going family conflict wasn??t enough, I had been in a relationship with an emotionally abusive and manipulative partner for a year at this point. She did not prove helpful to my suffering, if anything she made it worse through her lying and cheating. We had split up in early December and I was crushed. I felt completely alone because I had poured all my time and energy into her for a year and now she was gone, topped with the shame and sadness I was feeling as a result of my father seemingly abandoning me. This was of course all unfolding during the fall exam season, and I was heavily impacted by these psychological challenges. At this point I knew I had no other options other than taking the appropriate steps to get serious help, otherwise the outcome would have been ugly and grim.
I booked a therapist and began seeing him in January of 2022. The best decision of my life. I had spent December repairing my relationship with both of my parents, and strengthening the relationships with my friends, and building a fantastic support system out of that. When I came back to Kingston to begin winter semester and therapy, things were beginning to look up for me. By the end of January, I was so unbelievably happy and excited. I was going to the library everyday, handing assignments in on time, doing well on assignments, and feeling like I was the star of a comeback movie. This came to a halt when I was deregistered from my courses on February 17th as a result of not having my second vaccination dose, due to the school getting prepared for a return to in person courses. I got my second dose the day after receiving this email however it wasn??t until a week later that I was re-registered in my courses. This meant that I had completely missed my winter mid-terms, missing out on assignments worth 10-25% per course. I did not have access to drop boxes, rubrics, online tests, or any communications with my professors to inform them of the situation. I had not gotten my second dose because I had planned to over the winter break but got caught up in dealing with my mental well-being. I was focused on becoming mentally sound, the last thing I was worrying about was getting a needle in my arm. By the time the situation had been resolved, about a month had passed by and I had missed out on major marks within various courses. This was truly an unusual academic event which I still do not entirely understand. After trying so hard to get myself on the road to success only to be kicked out of my courses and not having access to the ONLINE content worth a large portion of my grades, I felt shut down. It was like being kicked in the head while I was picking myself up. I was left terribly unmotivated to continue school because the situation caused great amounts of stress and set me behind by weeks. I fell into a depression yet again and had to seek out therapy. I had gotten in contact with multiple people from the Faculty of Arts/Sci and on-campus mental health people to try my best at explaining my situation and finding guidance/support but the academic advisors were constantly booked and by the time I had reached anyone, it was too late. By the end of the school year I felt emotionally beat up and mentally exhausted.
Fast forward today and I know what I want. I just want another chance to prove to myself, to the school faculty, and to everyone around me that I can do this. I have historically been hard on myself, but I have learned that some things happen out of your control, but it is our duty to hold our heads high, learn, and continue moving forward. To ensure this won't happen again I have implemented a few lessons into my life which I have learned in the past two years: 1) Do not save things for the last minute. 2) Do not let people take advantage of you. 3) Take care of yourself and stray from distractions. I have also created a great support system of friends and family, and my therapist is on stand by if, theoretically, things were to get tough again. Not taking FILM110 in my first year of studies was a shame, but at least it taught me what I do not like. I love Film and Media studies and did quite well in the course FILM110. I love the Queen??s community and would hate to have to leave. I have already made living arrangements for the 2022-2023 school year and am looking forward to continuing my studies with all of the valuable life lessons learned the past two years. I know I can absolutely do a phenomenal job at producing fantastic academic work, as I have done it in the past and would like the opportunity to do it again.