Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Benjamin Inwood I am currently in my fourth year at Queen¿¿s and am petitioning for my final three courses that I am in this semester, (LLCU 319, POLS384, PHIL 301) to be dropped without penalty or struck from my academic record.
The reason that I am requesting this, is that this semester has been fraught with many incidents and mental health issues that have made it impossible to complete my school work and the little I did complete was not up to my normal standard of academic achievement. As you can see from my transcript I am in quite good academic standing in previous semesters.

I have always struggled with mental health and at the beginning of 2018 I was prescribed and took Escitalopram to help mitigate the effects of my depression and anxiety. Unfortunately, in June, just before I had started my job as the supervisor of the city of Kingston theatre Camp, I made the decision to go off the medication because of its negative side effects. I was worried it would impact the active nature of my job. Although this situation is regrettable, I felt that I had recovered enough to function without it. This was not the case when I returned to school. I started the year off with 5 courses then eventually dropped to 4 and then 3 courses to try and cope without the medication. I found it impossible to attend even tutorials and was quite isolated. This situation was aggravated by the fact that early in the semester my sister went missing for about 2 weeks which was very stressful for me. When she was found she was in very rough shape and in legal trouble which caused my anxiety to worsen. This was compounded by the cancer diagnosis of my girlfriend¿¿s mother and other health problems with members of my immediate family. After dropping down to three courses I decided it was finally time to get back on the medication. Unfortunately, this too made my academic situation worse as the adjustment time on this medication is quite long and causes lethargy, brain cloudiness and other negative side effects. By the time that I had adjusted it was clear that salvaging my semester was not an option. I went to Ottawa and then back home to New Haven where my parents reside.

I am very passionate about my studies and I do not wish to put my academic future in jeopardy. I plan on deferring my next semester to stay in New Haven, focus on my recovery, and develop strategies to cope with these issues when I am at school. I hope to return to Queen¿¿s in September 2019 and continue to pursue my studies. I have been in communication with Tess Grant who has been very helpful. When I return, she has offered to assist me in finding a physician that is a good fit for me and to help set me up with Accessibility Services so these types of situations can be handled more easily going forward.

Thank you for your consideration of my situation,
Ben Inwood
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