Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 10179
Submitted: March 17, 2023 at 10:05:25 PM
First Name: Andrew
Last Name: Poirier
Pronoun: He/Him
Student Number: 20165475
Email: 18afp3@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BAH
Plan: HIST
Level of Study: 2
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Waive the 21-day or one term deadline
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,
Over the past three years I have floundered both socially and academically due to suffering from severe cases of chronic depression and anxiety. Just prior to the 2020 quarantine I had already entered the early stages of declining mental health, and each year since has brought it??s own unique difficulties. One challenge that has remained consistent over the years has been a tendency to not communicate with others unless such interaction was strictly and immediately necessary - either my depression has deprived me of any motivation to do as much, or my anxiety has crippled my ability to do so at all. This has caused me to not check my email for long periods of time, as well as ceasing to engage in any capacity with both my professors and my friends, not to mention any advisors or administrators with whom I may have had any engagements.
In the year of 2021/2022 I initially returned in person to Queen??s in an attempt to resume my academic career after an unfruitful previous year in quarantine. However, by the middle of the first semester my mental health had reached it??s lowest point ever - so far, those are the worst days of my entire life. At least in 2020/2021 I had been living with my family for the duration of the quarantine, but the total isolation of living alone with (then undiagnosed) depression took a severe toll on my wellbeing. Additionally, my father had just died the previous summer some months prior, and I found myself unexpectedly consumed with crippling grief after having emotionally repressed my initial response to his death. As such, I returned home to live with my family again, effectively abandoning all thoughts of my academic career until I could return to even the most basic levels of functionality. This included any sort of checking my emails, reviewing course material, completing any assignments, or communicating with anyone even tangentially related to Queen??s. It is for this reason that I did not drop my Fall 2021 or Winter 2022 courses by the deadlines to do so without academic or financial penalty - I was simply in no state to even try.
As my mental health and general wellbeing have recently improved significantly, I now find myself in a place where I am finally ready to draft a petition to have all my courses from the 2021/2022 academic year dropped, though by now yet another important deadline has passed me by - namely, it has been over a year since the end of the Fall 2021 semester, and nearly a year since the end of the Winter 2022 semester. Therefore, I would like to officially request that said deadlines to file petitions to drop courses from that timeframe be waived in my instance, so that I might finally have a clean slate to move forward with academically. Attached to this petition are three supporting documents (though they are contained within only two files):
1. A Verification of Confidential Extenuating Circumstance form and a Verification of Personal Health Condition form, both dated to December 7, 2021 shortly after I initially retreated from academic life to recuperate with my family. These are both below an old Request for Academic Consideration of Extenuating Circumstances form that is largely unrelated to this particular petition - scroll past the first page to find the relevant documents. These documents should both confirm the reality and severity of my condition as well as the veracity of the timeline I have provided.
2. A letter from my therapists supporting my request to drop all of my Winter 2022 courses, dated to May 5, 2022. Though nearly of a year out of date by now, this letter was requested at a time when I was beginning to feel better and had begun to address my situation, only for me to suffer a severe relapse into anxiety shortly thereafter, which is why the letter was never submitted until now. If this version should prove insufficient as supporting documentation, I??m confident that I can acquire an updated version - though frankly, that would be a bit embarrassing for me to request this long after it was initially issued.
If there is any relevant information or supporting documentation that should prove helpful to this petition, please let me know and I will do my best to provide whatever is needed. Should this petition to waive the deadline be approved, then I fully intend to continue on with the appeals process to retroactively drop my 2021/2022 classes as soon as possible.
Humbly awaiting your verdict,
Andrew Poirier
Student 20165475
Over the past three years I have floundered both socially and academically due to suffering from severe cases of chronic depression and anxiety. Just prior to the 2020 quarantine I had already entered the early stages of declining mental health, and each year since has brought it??s own unique difficulties. One challenge that has remained consistent over the years has been a tendency to not communicate with others unless such interaction was strictly and immediately necessary - either my depression has deprived me of any motivation to do as much, or my anxiety has crippled my ability to do so at all. This has caused me to not check my email for long periods of time, as well as ceasing to engage in any capacity with both my professors and my friends, not to mention any advisors or administrators with whom I may have had any engagements.
In the year of 2021/2022 I initially returned in person to Queen??s in an attempt to resume my academic career after an unfruitful previous year in quarantine. However, by the middle of the first semester my mental health had reached it??s lowest point ever - so far, those are the worst days of my entire life. At least in 2020/2021 I had been living with my family for the duration of the quarantine, but the total isolation of living alone with (then undiagnosed) depression took a severe toll on my wellbeing. Additionally, my father had just died the previous summer some months prior, and I found myself unexpectedly consumed with crippling grief after having emotionally repressed my initial response to his death. As such, I returned home to live with my family again, effectively abandoning all thoughts of my academic career until I could return to even the most basic levels of functionality. This included any sort of checking my emails, reviewing course material, completing any assignments, or communicating with anyone even tangentially related to Queen??s. It is for this reason that I did not drop my Fall 2021 or Winter 2022 courses by the deadlines to do so without academic or financial penalty - I was simply in no state to even try.
As my mental health and general wellbeing have recently improved significantly, I now find myself in a place where I am finally ready to draft a petition to have all my courses from the 2021/2022 academic year dropped, though by now yet another important deadline has passed me by - namely, it has been over a year since the end of the Fall 2021 semester, and nearly a year since the end of the Winter 2022 semester. Therefore, I would like to officially request that said deadlines to file petitions to drop courses from that timeframe be waived in my instance, so that I might finally have a clean slate to move forward with academically. Attached to this petition are three supporting documents (though they are contained within only two files):
1. A Verification of Confidential Extenuating Circumstance form and a Verification of Personal Health Condition form, both dated to December 7, 2021 shortly after I initially retreated from academic life to recuperate with my family. These are both below an old Request for Academic Consideration of Extenuating Circumstances form that is largely unrelated to this particular petition - scroll past the first page to find the relevant documents. These documents should both confirm the reality and severity of my condition as well as the veracity of the timeline I have provided.
2. A letter from my therapists supporting my request to drop all of my Winter 2022 courses, dated to May 5, 2022. Though nearly of a year out of date by now, this letter was requested at a time when I was beginning to feel better and had begun to address my situation, only for me to suffer a severe relapse into anxiety shortly thereafter, which is why the letter was never submitted until now. If this version should prove insufficient as supporting documentation, I??m confident that I can acquire an updated version - though frankly, that would be a bit embarrassing for me to request this long after it was initially issued.
If there is any relevant information or supporting documentation that should prove helpful to this petition, please let me know and I will do my best to provide whatever is needed. Should this petition to waive the deadline be approved, then I fully intend to continue on with the appeals process to retroactively drop my 2021/2022 classes as soon as possible.
Humbly awaiting your verdict,
Andrew Poirier
Student 20165475
Documentation
Professional Letter: late_course_drop_letter.pdf
Document: Dec7_psychologist_letter.pdf