Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Academic Appeal
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Benjamin Ruby 20296600

June 18, 2022

Hello Dr. Stephenson,
I am appealing my 2021-2022 final grade in ECON 110 due to extenuating circumstances from mental health. I have already contacted the instructor for this course and QSAS (I am registered with QSAS). Specifically, I request a credit standing mark to replace my current grade. My ECON 110 instructor, Professor Cromb, has already informed me that he supports a credit standing approach, as does my QSAS advisor (emails attached). I struggle with intermittent episodes of depression, and became depressed shortly after returning to in person school after the winter reading week. I contracted COVID from my roommate, and the resulting isolation triggered a depressive episode, from which I did not recover until very recently. While I have learned over the years, by working with a psychologist, to largely cope with depression, my winter depressive episode had an impact on my academic work after Reading Week. In particular, I found it difficult to submit regular assignments and concentrate on my class work. I was still in this depressive state for the exam period, so I did not have the mental reservoir to cope with the usual exam anxiety. For the ECON 110 exam my on-going depression made it very difficult for me to recall relevant information even though I had made a special effort to study for this exam.

I took two other problematic exams this winter, MATH 111 and MATH 121. I am very appreciative that my professors for those two courses have allowed me to rewrite their exams (I delayed making this appeal for ECON 110 until those two courses had been handled informally). MATH 111 was my last winter exam (my mental state was so bad that I walked out after only a few minutes). Also, I had to walk out of my MATH 121 exam before completing all the questions because my mental state rapidly deteriorated during the exam.

Immediately after my first winter exam, I booked an appointment with my psychologist, whom I have been seeing for 3 years. As mentioned earlier, I have been dealing with intermittent depression for much of my life and have been getting better at predicting and coping with episodes of depression over the last few years. The depression that began after I had COVID this winter was not one that I considered to be so severe. It was certainly impacting my life, but not in a way that I thought was catastrophic, so I used my normal strategies and tried to ignore it. I have never had an episode of depression escalate as fast as it did during my first winter exam, MATH 121. Over the hour and a half I was in the exam hall it went from moderate and manageable to completely out of control, and forced me to leave the exam. After my last exam, it took me a bit over a week to recover enough to tell my parents about what happened and they have been very supportive. I then met with my psychologist and made appointments with both my GP and a psychiatrist to discuss further preventative measures. I have also engaged with QSAS to access mental health resources at Queen??s. My plan for next year is to take 4 full year courses in 2022-2023 (not 5 courses) and I am taking one Spring 2022 course, so as to spread out the academic load.

I am very committed to my academic career and desperately want to pursue a major in physics. I have already discussed the situation with the undergraduate chair of the physics department, who was my PHYS 104 instructor, and he has been wonderfully supportive of my entering the physics major plan in the Fall. My goal is to use every resource available to me, including this appeal, to get back on track so that I can manage episodes of depression and achieve academic success.

Documentation attached:
A. Correspondence with QSAS and my ECON 110 instructor
B. Letter of accommodation
C. Letter from psychologist Dr. Mark Rothman

I very much appreciate your considering this appeal.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Ruby
20296600