Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Good day, to whom this may concern.

This is my official petition regarding a letter I got from the Associate Dean of my program requiring me to withdraw. I realize I have failed to achieve many course units the past two years, and this isn’t the first letter of appeal I have written to the school. I am hoping for this to be my last letter of appeal/petition, and for that reason, I am asking you to keep an open mind reading this letter.

My first two semesters here at Queen’s, as a student-athlete, I had a great athletic year (team rookie of the year, OUA all rookie team). However, the outcomes were different academically. Because of the incidents that happened with my roommate, that whole year took a toll on my mental health and wellbeing affecting my grades gravely. As a result, I did have to appeal to some courses and take additional summer courses to catch up. My head coach at the time (Matt Holmberg) wrote a letter supporting this appeal. Afterwards, I started seeing the school therapist (Becky Haist) as well as making weekly academic plans with my academic mentor (Milana McNamee).

My second year at Queen’s, I was forced to take a step back from Gaels Hockey to focus on my academics. I wanted the plan I made with my superiors to work so bad that I would lie about some of the grades I was getting throughout the courses, because I was trying to convince myself that I could still do it. As much as I wanted to be better for everyone as well as myself, something just wasn’t working. I had not realized yet how my living situation in my previous year was still affecting me. My therapist had mentioned depression. I won’t go into details on how much this disease can affect someone's day to day life, but even for someone like myself, known as outgoing, positive, and fun, it did more damage than I would like to admit. I told her I did not want to get treatment (pills) for it, and I slowly stopped making appointments with her. I was scared because I have never had a history of depression and did not believe in it. I was trying to convince myself I was fine even though I know now, turning down help was wrong.

By the end of the year, you would think that my grades or myself would’ve gotten better, since I wasn’t playing Hockey and was only focusing on school. That was not the case. Because of my circumstances (my roommate) in year one, the school took away the one thing that kept me sane in my second year - exercise. My whole second year I was not motivated and did not feel good about anything. It was hard to focus solely on school when I didn’t have a place (the rink, the gym) to shake off the stress and the bad thoughts. I think any athlete could relate to the fact that their sport helps them be a better student and person. It’s just how we are. I realize that playing sports and exercising is a privilege, but it did not help my mental health/motivation in my case.

Please try to understand that the scenario in my first year was out of my control and unfortunately caused enough damage to make my second year suffer as well.

Please let me know if you need a detailed explanation of my roommate situation or if you still have my appeals on file.

Thank you.