Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

I am asking to drop PSYC 100, taken during the summer term of this year, 2022.

I have been experiencing severely distressing circumstances surrounding my family and have struggled with my mental health as a result, which has directly impacted my performance during the school year, but especially during the summer term.

I have been advised to give as detailed of a timeline as I possibly can, however, please bear with me as the past almost two years have been a bit foggy. In November 2020 my mom received a cancer diagnosis. We were very lucky to have caught it at the time that we did and she immediately started chemotherapy, and radiation and underwent surgery to essentially remove one of her lungs (lobectomy and pleural resection) in January 2021. The chemotherapy and radiation were completed in May of 2021.

With how fast everything was moving, I was left with no time to process really anything about the diagnosis or the operation, but she was now surgically deemed cancer free, at least until March of 2022. In March, we had gotten the news that the cancer was back and was not only in the lungs but also spread to her brain (oligometastatic non-small lung cancer and bifrontal brain metastases) which to make matters even worse as if they couldn't be already, is essentially terminal. It was happening all over again, immediate treatment, appointments after appointments and scans after scans. However this time, instead of being at home and being able to witness this all happening, I was attending my first year at your institution. None of what was happening felt real and it was hard to grasp all of what was happening until I was home in April 2022.

As if it couldn't seem to get worse, I was now coping with the first diagnosis and the second diagnosis all at the same time and my mental and physical health had plummeted. From not being able to sleep to not being able to get out of bed, constantly feeling sick to my stomach and being scared to leave my house if anything were to happen while I was gone. It was like nothing I have ever felt before. This started happening around the end of April once I had started to feel more settled back at home and just as I was about to start my summer term. I was fairly excited to start this term as it would make me busy without having to worry about anything else.

My summer term started off fairly well, I was able to complete the assignments to the best of my ability and I was overall enjoying learning again. Until the beginning of July when I hit a mental wall again. I was struggling to keep up on my work on top of struggling to keep up on basic needs for myself. It was around the beginning of July when I had made my first call to academic advising, to no avail other than I had missed the deadline for dropping courses. Upon hearing this I thought to myself, okay no worries I can still make this work for myself I just have to try harder, which I did until I was at my breaking point around 2 weeks ago when I decided to call academic advising for a second time for help simply explaining that I was going through some mental health struggles, again to no avail and was told I should've tried harder from the start so I wouldn't be so worried about passing.

I was trying my absolute hardest and It was at this point that I had had enough and decided to email anyone I could for even the slightest bit of help. It was then that I wrote an email detailing my concerns to USAB as well as the Senate because I didn't know who else to go to. It was then that I got in touch with Miss M. Norris and Miss H. Everson who both offered more help than I could've asked for and have gotten me to this point today.

Considering the family and mental health matters/struggles listed above, I am requesting to drop PSYC 100 taken during the summer term of this year, 2022.

Further documentation can be made available upon request.

Thank you in advance and with the kindest regards,

Grace A. Bafaro
20272700
20gab3@queensu.ca