Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am placing this request to appeal the faculty's decision that I must withdraw from Queen's for a minimum of one year. No doubt, my grades have hauntingly been very low for the last two years and I take full responsibility for that. Although I knew I had failed to progress academically it wasn¿¿t until I received the letter requesting my withdrawal that the full impact of this became real to me.

I was sad for letting myself and everyone who believes in me down. I felt a sense of guilt for wasting Queen's resources. I am grateful for being accorded with this chance in order to explain the circumstances that marred my last academic year

To begin with, 2017/2018 academic year started really well. I had attended some programs through Peer Mentoring at the start of the term . I learned some study strategies, for example , effective time management. I enjoyed most of my classes ,doing some collaborative works with other students. Then in late September 2017 (from Kenya) my mum mentioned that she was unwell and that it was nothing serious as she had visited a local pharmacy to buy some pain killers that day. I left it at that but as weeks went by the sickness got even worst. I was very worried about her at this point, having lost my dad in 2015 and still grieving for his loss. I was very much alarmed. I made sure I was there to support her. We agreed that it was better if she could receive her treatment at home. I started making international calls three to four times a day to check up on her, and since she could not do much around the house I asked her to hire a house help who would take care of my siblings and handle some chores in the house. I was happy that I could help in this situation but I also felt guilt that the financial support I was giving was intended for my educational purposes at Queen's

For most of the fall term I was dealing with my mum's sickness. I lost focus in my studies. I lost my appetite, could not sleep at night , felt lonely and homesick. The high spirit I had when I started my classes began to wane and instead of seeking help, I made a mistake, I stayed for days in my room hoping to get better and get back to class before anyone close to me find out. Mental health is still a very taboo topic from where I come from. Culturally, people do not talk about it openly. If you have it then you are no different from a defective device. I am not trying by any mean to justify why I did not seek help. I only wish to share some of the fears I had when I made some decisions.

In both fall and winter semester, I had three courses each. Consequently, I was not able to drop any of my remaining classes. I was required to maintain a full time course load in order to retain my Ontario government student assistance funding.