Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

On November 19th, I received a call from my father notifying me that my grandmother had a stroke. She was unresponsive and I was asked to drive back to Ottawa to say my goodbyes. The friday of the 24th I came home to see her in the hospital. That sunday the 26th she passed away. The next few weeks in Kingston consisted of me generally staying in my room, not attending classes and only leaving to attend mandatory lab sessions. Outside of the grieving that I personally went through, I felt responsible for the care of my father. I am an only child, my uncle was named as the executor of my grandmothers will and hence was busy with those duties, and my fathers partner lives in a different city where she works. This meant that as my father grieved for the passing of his mother, I was the only person that was available to him for comfort. This lead to very long phone calls very often while I was in Kingston as well as drives home when I could. With the weight of my own grief in addition to my fathers, my priorities shifted from academics to my family. This in turn made me fall behind in my classes as I missed lectures and spent a reduced amount of time on assignments and studying. This reduction in academic productivity and performance occurred the last week of the semester, generally a critical time for students to prepare for exams and finish final assignments. Unfortunately this led to me barely passing two courses that are included in the BFL (biological foundations list).

I originally refused to submit a petition after receiving my marks because I believed that I did not deserve an exception and I thought I would be able to do well enough in the winter term to make up for the sub-optimal performance the previous semester. However, now that I have exhausted all my options in the attempt to meet the GPA requirements to register for a 4th year seminar course (which is required to graduate), to no avail, I need to submit this petition in the hopes that at least one of the two courses will be credited.

My grandmother was a very important part of my life and the lives of my family. The shockwaves of her passing are still present today. I do not want to use her passing as an excuse but I realise that I now have no other choice. I hope I have outlined the reason behind my request sufficiently. Please let me know if you need more details or any kind of proof.

Thank you,
Liam White