Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

I am appealing to drop the online course BMED217 from the winter 2017 term due to extenuating circumstances. When I began at Queen¿¿s I was eager to excel and complete a life sciences degree in the hopes of one day applying to medical school. In my second year, I suffered a traumatic experience, and was bed ridden for some months causing me to appeal to drop courses that I had been previously enrolled in. After I had physically recovered, I believed I was capable of taking on a full course load and excelling academically as I had before the incident. Unfortunately, I was receiving very limited support for my mental health, and did not realize at the time how integral that support is to my full recovery. Once again I struggled to complete my work as I was making frequent trips to the hospital for severe panic attacks, I was left with no option other than to appeal to drop most of my courses, which were approved.

In September 2016, after enrolling once again with a full course load at Queen¿¿s, I quickly realized that I needed to focus solely on my recovery before attempting to finish my degree, a decision that I did not take lightly. I decided to return home to Toronto and take a medical leave of absence from Queen¿¿s in order to finally get the medical treatment that I needed. In an effort to make some academic progress and move forward with my life sciences degree, I enrolled in the online course BMED217 believing that this course would maintain some normalcy in my life. I have come to realize that my focus at this point needs to be on my recovery. Coming back home and reconnecting with a psychiatrist, a therapist and case worker, I believe I finally have the full complement of therapeutic support that I need to regain my health and eventually finish my degree. I will be taking the next several months to heal and will re-evaluate my ability to regain focus on my studies, hopefully returning to Queen¿¿s in September 2018. I understand now that I cannot enroll in courses for the mere fact that I want to progress academically, I realize that in order for any kind of academic progress to be made I need to be recovered and mentally stable to take on the challenging workload that my program requires.

I understand that I should have dropped this course some time ago, however much of my current struggle impacts my ability to stay on task and follow through with things. I have been off work and out of school for months now due to these difficulties. I started the appeal process about 8 weeks ago, but after running into technological difficulties submitting it online, my appeal was lost, as was my motivation to rewrite it and follow through with the process. As I have finally reconnected with my caseworker after some time and many attempts, I am finally able to complete and submit my request.

To support my claims, I can provide extensive documentation from my therapist and psychiatrist. I appreciate your consideration of this appeal, and hope that a positive outcome can be reached.

Sincerely

Georgia Scudder