Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Appeal Letter: To the Board of Studies, Academic Petitions/Appeals:
I am writing in response to the decision regarding my recent academic petition, to try to provide a more complete explanation of the extenuating circumstances I was dealing with that prevented me from submitting an academic appeal within the one-year deadline.
In November 2022, I experienced a traumatic event, and in January of 2023, I experienced another related event that caused me to experience a serious mental health crisis. It took me a significant amount of time to recover from this. For this reason, I was unable to successfully complete several of the courses I was enrolled in that year. I have explained this in more detail in my previous letter, and have provided multiple documents from health professionals attesting to this in my previous petition.
Over the summer of 2023 I was still recovering, but in the fall of 2023, I registered for classes, and had planned to reconnect with Student Wellness Services and discuss the possibility of submitting a petition to have the courses I had failed during the previous year removed from my transcript. Over the summer, I had met someone who I had begun a relationship with. I was not aware of this when I met him, but I later learned that he had an extensive criminal record and a history of abusing women physically and emotionally. After learning about this in early October 2023, I attempted to end the relationship out of concern for my own safety. When I tried to go no contact with him, he proceeded to spend the remainder of the year harassing and terrorising me, to the point where, in November and December of that year, law enforcement became involved. His harassment included psychological manipulation, blackmail, repeatedly telling me to commit suicide, and violent threats. During this time I was referred to the CARE team on campus, as I was actively in crisis. Because of the continual intimate partner violence that I was experiencing, it became extremely difficult for me to focus on anything else. Therefore, I was unable to prioritise the appeals process or take deadlines into consideration.
In the winter semester of 2022, the harassment from him continued intermittently, and this had a seriously detrimental impact on my well being. My mental health continued to be impacted, and I was struggling in many areas. Due to this situation, I coped with stress through avoidance, because I was in survival mode and was not thinking rationally. The prospect of going through the complicated appeals process and obtaining the necessary documentation seemed impossible in the state that I was in. During this time, I was actively working with a counselor and seeking help from health professionals at Student Wellness Services. I experienced several medication changes that impacted my energy levels and ability to focus. For these reasons, I was unable to successfully complete some of the courses I was enrolled in, and was not able to submit an academic appeal before the deadline.
If these grades remain on my transcript, it will have a detrimental impact on any future academic or career opportunities. I know that I have the potential to be a high-achieving student: in my first two years of university (before transferring to Queen’s) when my mental health was stable, I had an A/A+ average, nearly perfect attendance, and was on the President’s list and Dean’s list. The recent classes I failed were all due to the fact that I was unable to attend class or complete my assignments, not due to an inability to understand the material. When I am able to complete my work, it either meets or exceeds academic standards.
The past three years have been extremely traumatic for me, for multiple reasons that I could not have predicted or anticipated. It’s difficult for me to fully explain the scope of what has happened, but it has impacted my life in ways that are profoundly negative, both academically and personally. I am actively working to recover, and I don’t want this difficult period of my life to define the remainder of my academic career and limit my future opportunities. This semester, I have been successfully attending classes and completing work, and am regularly meeting with my professors and seeing a counsellor to ensure that I can continue to fulfill my academic responsibilities. More than anything, I want to return to being the high achieving student that I was before my mental health difficulties and extenuating circumstances derailed my academic progress. I hope that you will take my extenuating circumstances into consideration, enabling me to complete the remainder of my degree and move on to the next chapter of my life.