Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern:

I am appealing the grades received in the term Fall 2017, specifically the courses ECON 310, and ECON 351 for credit standing.
Extenuating circumstances beyond my control hindered my ability to perform at my fullest during the examinations of these courses. Early December, I had my only winter coat stolen from the ARC locker room during a particularly cold, snowy period. The coat was very valuable and losing it caused me to undergo a few weeks without a coat, in which I not only became sick due to needing to venture outside without a coat as well as being forced to eat sub-par foods due to not having much money left over after purchasing a new coat. In fact, I distinctly remember having hunger pains during the writing of ECON 310. But it also weighed heavily on my mental health due to loss aversion of having such an expensive coat stolen from me. I found this, coupled with sickness, made it very hard to focus on school work, and despite my best efforts to stay motivated, affected me negatively in regard to my examinations. I believe that having my coat stolen from me negatively affected my view of the school and caused me to lose motivation and not be in the correct headspace, further, I believe that the sickness caused from not having a coat for a period of time sapped my energy and made it even harder to not only study, but to write these strenuous exams, as I was sick during writing them. I attempted to mitigate these factors through medication as well as buying cheap food in order to be able to purchase another coat to wear but it wasn¿¿t enough. I also filed a police report in the hopes that my coat would be located but it was a fruitless endeavour. Early in the fall semester I had my laptop stolen from my home and I believe that this coupled with having my coat stolen made me depressed due to believing that these sorts of things shouldn¿¿t be happening at such a prestigious university. A student shouldn¿¿t have to worry about items being stolen from them during an exam period, as well the workers at the ARC were less then empathetic to my situation and I was forced to walk home on one of the coldest days of the year in a T-shirt. I believe that a circumstance that I had no control over greatly negatively impacted me in many ways. I believe that had these circumstances not befallen me, I would have been able to achieve a grade much higher than the grades I received. It is because of this that I ask for an appeal for credit standing in the courses, so that my GPA is not negatively affected, and so that my ECON GPA is above a 2.6 (currently .06 below) so that I may take the 4th year seminars and graduate on time with my peers. This circumstance was not under the control of my actions and I do not believe that I should have had to suffer distress both mental and physical such as this during and already strenuous period of third year exams.
My future plan to make sure this type of situation never happens again is to make sure to leave valuable belongings at home (even though I also had a laptop stolen from my home at the beginning of the school year), as well as using an industrial level lock on my locker in the future.
As well as own a backup coat on the off chance that something like this ever happens again.

As for my appeal to wave the one-term deadline, when I spoke with an academic advisor they did not tell me that there was any deadline. Due to myself being distraught at the marks I had received due to being unable to write the exams of ECON 310 and 351 to the best of my ability. I had planned to hand in the appeal after the term was over so that I could focus my hardest on my studies. As well, do to the documentation being required being a police report, I would have needed to go to the Kingston Police Station to retrieve it. This was also put off due to me not having a mode of transportation or the money to spend on a ride to the station, and the walk being around an hour and half total. Once again, at no point during my meeting with the academic advisor about credit standing was I notified of the one-term limit. I work 40 hour work weeks during the summer as well as taking two online summer courses so I have not had much time to be able to file the appeal. I hope that the one-term deadline will be waved and my appeal granted so that I am able to finish my last year at Queen's University.

Thank you, Nathen Sevigny