Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Dorit Naaman (Academic Associate Dean),


I hope this letter finds you well. My name is Odessa Ricca, I am a first year student at Queen’s university, and my student number is 20528203. I am petitioning to drop ENGL 101 (Fall, 2025), FILM 113 (Fall, 2025), GNDS 125 (Fall, 2025), POLS 111 (Fall, 2025), and SOCY 100 (Fall, 2025).

The reason I am petitioning to drop these 5 courses is because I failed them due to an extenuating circumstance. My God mother/aunt was hospitalized with liver cirrhosis after collapsing, which progressed quickly into endstage liver failure, organ failure, and eventually her passing away. This letter is extremely difficult to write, I do not know how to put into words how terrible the past few months have been, but I will provide a detailed time line to try and explain what was happening. It began at the start of the Fall 2025 reading week. I got a call from my cousin (my aunt's daughter) and she said my aunt had been hospitalized and was not doing well. For context, they both live in Brockville which is around an hour away from Kingston. I am the only one close to them, as my parents and the rest of the family live in Toronto. Due to this, I spent my entire reading week in Brockville, going from spending time at the hospital and taking care of my aunt to taking care of my cousin's small children while she was with her mother. This exhausting process, both emotionally and physically, stayed consistent until mid November. From mid October to mid November I was going back and forth from Kingston to Brockville, constantly taking care of someone, neglecting to take care of myself. I tried my best at this point to keep doing my readings, to look over lecture slides, to try and start assignments, but no matter what I did my brain was constantly full and my body was exhausted. I did connect with some of my TAs, explaining why I missed tutorials, asking if there were ways to make up for them. I also came up with plans, notably with my sociology TA, Emma Mills. She helped me immensely during this entire time, and we came up with various plans for getting my work in for the class. Everytime I would start catching up, her condition would worsen. It was a cycle like this for that month period. Around mid November, there was a glimpse of hope and she was transferred to Toronto, in hopes of a liver transplant. I was relieved for two reasons; one, she was on the list and things could get better, and two, I was no longer the main family member that needed to be helping. At this point, I am desperately trying to figure out what to do. I sent emails to my TA while I was on the bus home from Toronto trying to figure out a plan. I was trying my best to fix things before it was too late. I came up with plans of how to hand the work in, accepting that I would lose late marks, I did not care I just wanted to pass the classes at this point. This was extremely overwhelming, especially for me as I suffer with extreme anxiety especially surrounding school or falling out of routine. Near the end of November, I went to my first counselling appointment trying to essentially relive some of the panic so I could work through my assignments as I was determined to finish them. The reason I went to counseling was because a PASS advisor told me it would be a good option as I spoke to them about these feelings of being overwhelmed. As soon as I got my plan into place, I received a call at the end of November that she was in critical condition and my family had made the decision to stop all of the end-of-life care, knowing it wasn't what she wanted. I got on a bus and was in Toronto for that weekend. She passed away in the evening on November 30th. The following day I emailed my professors and TAs for each class requesting an incomplete grade so I could hand in the work. All of them agreed, and I asked for an extension until January 2nd because I did not want to have the pressure from the first semester follow me into the next semester. What I did not know was that this would be the most difficult month of all. I was completely unable to move as grief had overtaken my life, it being the holidays did not help either. I ended up not being able to complete the work by the assigned day although I tried my hardest everyday to work on something. I ended up failing all five classes, some due to not being able to get the major assignment in, some due to missing graded tutorials due to being in Brockville, and some due to bombing my exam because I was completely unable to study. Early January I spoke with a PASS advisor about what to do, how to fix everything. I was determined to at least try to fix it. She advised me that it might just be best to get a late drop on those classes and make up the credits elsewhere. I would have dropped those courses before the deadline, but I genuinely thought I would be able to get those assignments in and pass my courses. Nothing could have prepared me for how truly difficult it was going to be after her death. I thought the worst was behind me, but I had no idea.

I am working through this grief with family and a counselor at Queens. I am trying my best each day. In the long term, I don’t feel as pressured and overwhelmed in this new semester. Although the grief is still there, I see this semester as a fresh start to try again, and even if I am not yet performing to the best of my abilities, it is extremely less overwhelming to perform at all. The plan I have if I am granted the opportunity to drop this courses (even if I am not, I still have this plan as I would need to make the credits up), is to take an extra course this semester (which I am already), take two summer courses (I am already enrolled), to retake POLS111 and SOCY100 in fall of 2026 (as required for the major I want to get into), and to take summer courses again in the following summer or to take an extra course each semester of second year depending on my course work load. I have thought very hard about this solution and I know I can handle it. For my mental health I will continue to go to counseling, and I will continue to use Queens academic resources like the bounce back program that I am in currently. My overall goal is to get into law school and my gpa matters a lot for this. This is part of the reason I am so determined to fix my gpa and get the courses I need. I urge you to please consider the fact that I was so excited for university and the opportunity to learn new things, and what happened in the first semester was completely out of my control. As much as I tried my best to stay on top of my academics, I was struggling through losing one of the most important people in my life.

Overall, I look forward to hearing from you. If you need more information or anything at all please let me know, I would be more than happy to provide it.
Thank you for your consideration,


Odessa Ricca