Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 14492
Submitted: June 15, 2026 at 11:56:33 PM
First Name: William
Last Name: Lambert
Pronoun: He/HIm
Preferred Name: Hayden
Student Number: 20344669
Email: 21whl2@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BAH
Plan: ECON
Level of Study: 4
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Waive the requirement to withdraw for one year
Level 1 Status
Status: DeniedLevel 2
Appeal Type: Level 2
ID: 379
Submitted: July 18, 2026 at 12:00:00 AM
Relevant Petition: 14492
Decision(s) Being Appealed: Waive the requirement to withdraw for one year
Appeal Grounds
Appeals to the Board of Studies must include a letter based on one or more of the Grounds for Appeal (Appeal Regulation 3.4). What are the grounds you are basing your appeal on?
- The Associate Dean's decision did not follow the rules of procedural fairness. A breach of procedural fairness includes such things as the Associate Dean failed to:
- Make a reasonable decision in your appeal. A “reasonable” decision is one that is based on evidence, thought out and supported by facts and logical inferences from the facts. To be reasonable, the decision must contain adequate reasons for the conclusions.
Appeal Grounds Details: The decision denies my petition for one reason. It states that
Appeal Letter
Appeal Letter: Dear Board of Studies,
I am appealing the Associate Dean's decision to deny my petition to waive the Requirement to Withdraw for One Year. I have set out my grounds in the section above, so I won't repeat them here. What I'd like to use this letter for is the part I don't think I explained well the first time: what this actually looked like as it was happening, where things stand now, and what I would do differently if I'm allowed to come back.
I want to say at the outset that I understand why the Associate Dean decided as they did, and I'm grateful for the care that went into the letter. I'm not writing because I'm unhappy with the outcome. I'm writing because I think one specific thing about how my condition works never made it onto the page.
The timeline:
In early November, when the drop deadline passed, I was fine, or at least I thought I was. I was going to class. I was doing the work. My family had told me in August, and again through the fall, that a lawyer was being retained to manage my dad's finances, and I wanted to believe them, so I did. There was nothing in front of me in November that said withdraw.
What broke the term came later. During reading week I found out the scam was still going. In the week right before my December exams, my brother told me he thought it was happening again. On December 23, while my dad was in the hospital, I found the printed emails that confirmed it. By then the deadline was over a month gone.
In the 48 hours before my December exams I did not sleep. At all. I have had this happen before, and at the time I thought it was just me being weak about stress. I understand now that it isn't.
I've attached a Verification of Mental Health Disability form from my family physician, Dr. Jennifer Lam, dated July 17, 2026. I didn't have it when I submitted the first petition. The line that matters to me most is where she describes my condition as Permanent (Episodic), meaning that it is expected to affect me through my studies, but with periods of good health in between. My anxiety doesn't decline in a way I can watch coming and plan around. I am okay, and then something happens, and I'm not, and by the time I know I'm not, the window to do anything sensible has closed. My doctor and I went through trial and error, and I now have medication prescribed for exactly these situations; for the nights before exams, which is when this has always found me.
I'm continuing to work with my therapist and with my academic advisor, and I'll be checking in with my advisor before each drop deadline specifically, not after, so that the decision to withdraw from a course is a conversation with someone, not something I try to judge alone at the worst possible moment. The reality is that my grandmother is still in treatment and my dad's situation is not resolved; I'm not going to stand here and tell the Board that everything is fixed, because it isn't, and I don't think you'd believe me if I did. What I can tell you is that I'm no longer trying to manage it by myself, and that the pieces I can control, being the medication, the accommodations, and regular meetings with my therapist, are in place before the term starts rather than after it ends.
What this year taught me is that the list of things I control is smaller than I thought, and that it doesn't include how I react at 3 a.m. before an exam after two days without sleep. What I do control is everything upstream of it: whether I'm medicated for it before the night arrives, whether the university knows about it before the term goes wrong instead of after, whether I'm carrying five courses or three, and whether I'm sitting in my advisor's office in October rather than emailing them in January to explain what happened. I still believe I can be the student who got into Queen's in the first place. I'd be grateful for the chance to prove it, and if the Board decides otherwise, I'll use the year to keep doing the work I've described here, because it's work worth doing whether or not I'm enrolled.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Sincerely,
Hayden Lambert
I am appealing the Associate Dean's decision to deny my petition to waive the Requirement to Withdraw for One Year. I have set out my grounds in the section above, so I won't repeat them here. What I'd like to use this letter for is the part I don't think I explained well the first time: what this actually looked like as it was happening, where things stand now, and what I would do differently if I'm allowed to come back.
I want to say at the outset that I understand why the Associate Dean decided as they did, and I'm grateful for the care that went into the letter. I'm not writing because I'm unhappy with the outcome. I'm writing because I think one specific thing about how my condition works never made it onto the page.
The timeline:
In early November, when the drop deadline passed, I was fine, or at least I thought I was. I was going to class. I was doing the work. My family had told me in August, and again through the fall, that a lawyer was being retained to manage my dad's finances, and I wanted to believe them, so I did. There was nothing in front of me in November that said withdraw.
What broke the term came later. During reading week I found out the scam was still going. In the week right before my December exams, my brother told me he thought it was happening again. On December 23, while my dad was in the hospital, I found the printed emails that confirmed it. By then the deadline was over a month gone.
In the 48 hours before my December exams I did not sleep. At all. I have had this happen before, and at the time I thought it was just me being weak about stress. I understand now that it isn't.
I've attached a Verification of Mental Health Disability form from my family physician, Dr. Jennifer Lam, dated July 17, 2026. I didn't have it when I submitted the first petition. The line that matters to me most is where she describes my condition as Permanent (Episodic), meaning that it is expected to affect me through my studies, but with periods of good health in between. My anxiety doesn't decline in a way I can watch coming and plan around. I am okay, and then something happens, and I'm not, and by the time I know I'm not, the window to do anything sensible has closed. My doctor and I went through trial and error, and I now have medication prescribed for exactly these situations; for the nights before exams, which is when this has always found me.
I'm continuing to work with my therapist and with my academic advisor, and I'll be checking in with my advisor before each drop deadline specifically, not after, so that the decision to withdraw from a course is a conversation with someone, not something I try to judge alone at the worst possible moment. The reality is that my grandmother is still in treatment and my dad's situation is not resolved; I'm not going to stand here and tell the Board that everything is fixed, because it isn't, and I don't think you'd believe me if I did. What I can tell you is that I'm no longer trying to manage it by myself, and that the pieces I can control, being the medication, the accommodations, and regular meetings with my therapist, are in place before the term starts rather than after it ends.
What this year taught me is that the list of things I control is smaller than I thought, and that it doesn't include how I react at 3 a.m. before an exam after two days without sleep. What I do control is everything upstream of it: whether I'm medicated for it before the night arrives, whether the university knows about it before the term goes wrong instead of after, whether I'm carrying five courses or three, and whether I'm sitting in my advisor's office in October rather than emailing them in January to explain what happened. I still believe I can be the student who got into Queen's in the first place. I'd be grateful for the chance to prove it, and if the Board decides otherwise, I'll use the year to keep doing the work I've described here, because it's work worth doing whether or not I'm enrolled.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Sincerely,
Hayden Lambert