Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean,

Hello, I hope you are doing well. My name is Mouno Ugas and I am a third year student in the English Language and Literature program here at Queens. I'm writing this appeal asking for a second chance, though extremely late, for my academic standing. I did not write this appeal until now because though I knew the various struggles I endured were extremely difficult upon me, I did not think they would be given consideration.

Prior to the summer of 2016 I was a university student who had never failed a course and was on track to graduate in the 2017 semester. What had happened to me was beyond my control in many circumstances. I live in government housing in one of the worst areas in Toronto (Rexdale) My single mother works as a bus driver and we barely make the bills each month. Nonetheless this never proved to be a problem to my academic life until recently, when my older brother who suffers from addiction began stealing 1000's of dollars from my family. My mother didn't have it in her to kick him out no matter how hard we tried to tell her it was the best thing for us. She didn't realize she was enabling him. This put a huge financial burden on my family and myself and so I began working full time at a daycare. I would work 40-45 hour weeks and come home exhausted and open my laptop to find an array of assignments I continuously fell behind on. It seemed like the harder I tried to keep up in school, the worse my outside life got. Soon I began receiving calls from my estranged father that my grandfather back home in East Africa was sickly and on his death bed. I can not describe to you the immense amount of anxiety and guilt I felt not being there for him. I didn't realize I was slipping into a depression until one normal day at work I found myself huddled in a corner in a dark room crying during my lunch period. My life, it felt like, was in shambles. I was failing all my classes, my boss hated me because I kept asking for time off of work for school so I couldn't get a raise, I was still not making enough money to help my mother, let alone save some to go back to Africa and be by my grandfathers side. That coupled with the fact that up until this semester I was paying for my own tuition, put an immense amount of stress and anxiety on me. I suffered from frequent panic attacks. I remember being asked in the fifth grade what I wanted to be when I grew up and the answer was always the same, an English teacher. I loved English, I loved the language the history the literature, everything. And working at the daycare I realized how much I loved teaching too. But over the course of the year I grew to doubt my ability to even do so. After some time I sought help. It has been the most gratifying experience of my life realizing I am not alone and I am not particularly stupid or wrong and that sometimes we just have to realize not everything is in our control. I emailed my professors last fall in a last attempt to pass some of my classes and thankfully most of them aided me in doing so. However I was still unable to pass Hist263 and still had multiple failed classes from the year prior. I am not asking that you remove every single failed class from my transcript, just the ones I felt I never really stood a chance in due to my situation at that time. Aside from seeking help, I've quit working and began focusing solely on my academic career and amazingly my mother has been very supportive and understanding of this. I intend to work hard this semester and focus on what I love again, English. I also plan on making a 4 course limit rule for myself and emailing my professors whenever I feel overwhelmed. Thank you for your consideration.