Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean of Arts and Science,

¿¿ ¿ I am writing to request to drop the following courses without academic penalty: PSYC 100 (online during the summer 2017), as well as for MUSC 227 (2016-2017).
The extenuating circumstances, related to mental health problems, resulted in my inability to complete course work to my best. My mental health challenges have severely impacted my ability to complete course work to the extent I once could, during the MUSC 227 term PSYC 100¿term and also during the appeal period which lead to a request for an extension of the deadline. Ongoing mental health reasons prevented me from completing my appeal for the course and dropping the course during the required time.
Over the course of the MUSC 227 class, PSYC 100 class and the past few months, my mental health issues also impacted my physical wellbeing and ability to function as I once was in university. When I was physically ill I ws unable to complete work to my best abilities.I fell short about 1 on the exam requirement portion of PSYC 100 and therefore failed the course despite having a grade above 50.
Near the end of the MUSC 227 course during the 2017 Winter term I found myself struggling to keep up with a workload that I used to be able to. I did not complete one of the final tests for MUSC 227 and the tests prior to that were not completed to the best of my abilities.
The course, Ear Training and Sight Singing was one that due to its vocal performance requirements, was very strongly impacted by my health problems. This type of course requires students to be able to walk into a room and confidently look at a piece of music they have never seen before and sing it, something that can be extremely challenging for people not studying voice. While I have come a long way from my first test where me along with other students were crying, it is still a task that I struggle with.
While I have been working with my doctor and Queen¿¿s services to deal with these problems, until now I found myself unable to complete the appeal which is something that my doctor agrees with and supports. My health problems have affected my abilities to complete tasks due to lack of motivation, lack of concentration, and my physical ability to complete tasks.
I have recently come to the conclusion that I need to accept that my illness may require me to lower my number of courses and general expectations that I have for myself. Because I did not address this over the year I found myself struggling with a high course load, my mental health and an inability to complete my appeal. I put all my focus into completing my course work which caused more problems for my mental health.
I have been working with faculty to ensure my current courses are not impacted by my mental health challenges however I would like to do everything I can to ensure that my prior problems will not further hinder my success or cause problems for me in my final years at Queen¿¿s.

Thank you,
Lidia White
10181289