Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Joshua McCaul
December 5, 2018

To the office of the Associate Dean of Studies:

Good morning and thank you in advance for your time and consideration for this appeal to my requirement to withdrawal for three years that began three and a half years ago. I will not get into the details of the extenuating circumstances that led me from being an honors student to being removed from campus for my own safety but will note that the issues I was facing were not resolved upon my return from the RTW1 that was enacted in 2012. I left Queen's in an unhealthy state of mind and had physical issues to contend with as well. I was angry with how everything unfolded, feeling abandoned in a time of need and soon grew to be more and more angry with myself. At that time returning to Queen's was an obsession, and rather than focus on being healthy I was bent on the idea of proving everyone wrong and subsequently did not resolve the issues that plagued me in my first few years at Queen's the second time around. I had a plan, but it was vague, and was honestly focused more on proving everyone wrong than addressing the important questions that year was meant to have me answer. I believe I¿¿ve figured out those answers this time around.

Now, I do not want to paint a picture that from the first day I left Queen's I began to make improvements on myself because honestly it took some time for me to get going as I had checked out and was back in a downward spiral long before the term ended. Eventually I worked, back at Subway as I had done during my last withdrawal, but it honestly was going through the motions more than anything. I did well for the most part, had ups and downs as most people do but was angry for several months and did nothing to improve my health or to remove myself from abusive relationships.

At some point it hit me. I was miserable to the point where something had to change, and for all my stipulations about this thing and that and health issues understood that I was where I was at because of my own doing in some way or another and surprisingly I was okay with it. I thought about what I was good at, professionally, and decided to make my way to a call-centre, StarTek to try and move up in a company ¿¿ to create a future for myself ¿¿ which was something I can¿¿t say I¿¿ve ever really put time, effort or critical thought into doing. I started working there in early 2016 and starting that summer began being promoted almost quarterly due to reliability, my performance and numerous other factors. It wasn¿¿t perfect, there were hiccups here and there, but it was more-so growing pains rather than the off-the-rails issues I had during my times at Queen's.

I left Star-Tek in September 2017, and in pursuit of wanting to find something that I was passionate about being working at Saint Elizabeth Health Care as a Service Coordinator. Again, I was recognized as a model employee and again although there were hiccups here and there, nothing really went unhinged or really came close to. I received a recognition award for my work in March 2018 and felt motivated by what I was doing as for the first time in my life felt like I was contributing positively to the world around me. I soon moved out of a poor living situation, cutting off abusive people from my life that had plagued me for nearly a decade and had felt mentally clear for the longest time in my life being physically as healthy as I¿¿ve been. I worked there for months but had this growing desire to get out of the office and find my real passion. At that point I decided I wanted to become a nurse but feared my history at Queen's in questioning where I would find myself mentally if I undertook that challenge. I knew I was healthy, but nonetheless apprehensive given where I¿¿ve been. So I decided to take a PSW program to not only confirm where my passions were but also to make sure that I was ready to return to higher learning and could juggle University life with personal responsibilities.

I started the course earlier this year while still working in the Saint Elizabeth office, got an extra job at the Windsor Retirement Home in Amherstview, but left the latter in late August as I began working as a home support worker for Saint Elizabeth in the community as well in their office as a coordinator (until October when I resigned from that role) while taking the PSW course. I received another recognition award in August as an HSW and have been able to balance a full time course-load with an almost perfect average and two jobs (one full-time, one part-time) for most of my time there (which I¿¿ve pulled back to ensure I¿¿m taking adequate time for myself). This Trillium PSW course, of which my marks are attached, is awaiting my final marks to be posted as I finish my last few hours of placement at KGH this week (on pace with my program and class) and my final exam. In terms of the past week in Queen's I¿¿ve met with student services, IT to reactivate my account and various program heads to make sure I know where I¿¿m going this time around.

As previously mentioned I am requesting a return from this required academic withdrawal with a plan in hand that is laden with smart goals rather than vague idealizations, and hope that the very fact I didn¿¿t file this the moment I was eligible to do so shows that I am trying to take things a little more cautiously this time around as I feel ready rather than rushing in. This specific plan that I have is to file this appeal to return to school in a full-time capacity (dropping down to part time in my one job upon acceptance of this), submit my prepared appeal to drop classes late (for which I have documentation of the aforementioned but not elaborated on extenuating circumstances that led to them being dozens of incompletes rather than ever having a failure), take some winter term classes as a full-time student that are re-dos that I couldn¿¿t drop after the fact in my upcoming appeal or something I¿¿m interested in to assist in raising my GPA and apply to the Laurentian University pre-health program taught through St. Lawrence College for next September or, at worst case scenario, raise my GPA a little more thereafter and go the following year.

With this plan, and this was the biggest thing in a lot of ways, I now understand that I probably will not graduate from Queen's and have confronted that fact with my family, but rather than returning with this desire to prove everyone wrong and make them happy that I made it through the prestigious Queen'ss I¿¿m owning my own future and saying this is what I want rather than trying to drag the past ten years and the academic grooming before that to be what they expected of me and follow a passion rather than an expectation.

Thank you again for your time and consideration and I hope to hear positively from your office soon.