Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Natalie Mangialardi, and I am third-year Concurrent-Education/Psychology (Arts) major. I am seeking a Credit standing (CR) for my final grade in PSYC 271 from the Fall 2017 semester. I am a student living with Type 1 Diabetes. For the past few years, I was also struggling with an eating disorder and low mood. However, instead of focusing my time and energy into dealing with my internal issues, I put my efforts into my school work, as I have always done. This is why my marks for first and second year were up to my usual standards. This year, however, I had recovered from my eating disorder and was managing my diabetes better. I was looking to turn a new leaf. This meant I now had to balance my mental health, and physical health, at the same time as keeping up with my heavy course load. Not to mention, becoming the President of Queen¿¿s Diabetes Society and a Research Assistant in a psychology lab this year. I have since come to realize how much work taking care of myself really is, as someone with a chronic physical disability and a vulnerability to mental illness.
Unfortunately, last semester, during this transitional period of my life, I was not able to perform to my best abilities. First off, being a student with Type 1 Diabetes means that I have to check my blood sugar and give myself insulin at each meal, something I was not taking the time to do before. And with the stress of school, came increased fluctuations of my blood sugars, making me extremely tired and unable to concentrate at some points. Concentration was something that was especially important to succeed in PSYC 271. This course focused on a lot of minute and specific details of the human brain, which my brain was not physiologically able to do when my blood sugars spiked. This made paying attention in lecture difficult. Secondly, being in recovery from my eating disorder meant that I had to attend regular doctor¿¿s and therapy appointments in order to make sure I was staying on the right path, which ended up taking up quite a bit of my time outside of class. As well, a lot of my mental space was taken up by constantly thinking about whether I was getting the right amount of nutrients; not too little, not too much. Again, mental acuity and focus was extremely important to succeed in this course. However, my mental space was already full with adapting to my new norm, in maintaining good physical and mental health. And I believe I shouldn¿¿t be penalized for making such a positive, and necessary change to my life.
If you look at my transcript, you can clearly see that last semester did not reflect my typical academic standing. I was on Dean¿¿s Honour List in both first and second year and I am hoping to still obtain a GPA of 3.5 or higher by the end of this year. Although it has been a lot of work, I have learned this semester how to deal with my personal challenges while still maintaining academic success. As well, next year I hope to set up accommodations with Student Accessibility Services with regards to my physical disability, in order to take a more preventative approach. As someone hoping to pursue graduate studies in School Psychology, I would really appreciate not including my PSYC 271 final letter grade on my transcript or in my GPA, as it does not accurately describe my academic abilities. And this is why I am seeking a Credit standing (CR).

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Natalie Mangialardi