Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am appealing to drop GPHY227, SOCY275, ENSC103 and LAW201 (all Fall, 2017 courses) due to extenuating circumstances resulting from an illness.

I am unable to complete these courses because of ongoing mental health issues.
These mental health issues started during my first year. I sought help through Student Wellness Services. I met with Tonya Bauemann and then later met with David Neary in February 2017. Despite best efforts by Tonya and David, the services from Queen¿¿s did not help me resolve my challenges and so I sought out a therapist outside of Queen¿¿s. I saw Joan Boyd, who is a registered psychotherapist. I saw Ms. Boyd once a week for eight weeks. This support allowed me to continue at Queen¿¿s during my first year.

During my first semester at Queen¿¿s (fall 2016) I was struggling academically, but I still successfully completed all my courses.

In April 2017, during the winter semester exam period, I was forced to seek treatment at Kingston General Hospital for my on going mental health challenges. A doctor from the hospital wrote a letter to exempt me from writing the DEVS100 Exam( see attached documentation). Not having to write the exam took a huge amount of stress off my shoulders. I suffer from depression and anxiety and it is triggered mainly by the exam processes that are required in most courses.

In May 2017, I was diagnosed by my health care professional, Janice Grey, at home and prescribed medication for my anxiety.

During my second year at Queen¿¿s, Fall 2017 I had another severe mental breakdown and had to take a week off of school to deal with my mental health. After the week was over, I talked to Jason Harris at Student Academic Services. I received more academic accommodations. I was able to ask for extensions on certain assignments, on a course-by-course basis.

In October 2017, the accommodations were not enough and the academics at Queen¿¿s were taking huge toll on my mental health, not only was a struggling with test anxiety, I was now unmotivated, very unhappy, and showing signs of depression. With these mental health challenges that started in the end of September, I found attending class and submitting assignments extremely difficult.

On November 7th, my depression along with the stress of large essay¿¿s and difficult midterms resulted in me suffering another mental breakdown. My parents and I decided that it was best to withdraw from my studies at Queen¿¿s altogether and to focus my energies on getting well. Although I thought that since I had finished my first year, I would be able to handle second year, my illness had progressed to the point where I was unable to function on a day-to-day basis.

Despite my intentions to continue to work hard and overcome these challenges, I suffered this mental breakdown after the November 03 deadline to withdraw. That is why I could not withdraw from my studies before the November 3rd deadline.

I am not seeking a refund for these courses. I am simply asking that these courses be removed from my transcript due to an illness, so that once I am well I can continue my studies without having to reapply or explain the lack of completion of these courses.

I believe I need to focus on getting well and I look forward to returning to my studies as soon as I am well. Thank you for your consideration and for removing these incompleted courses from my transcript.

Emma Robinson