Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am writing to appeal for an extension on an incomplete course, GNDS 212.

During my 4th year, I came back to Queens University as my sole financial provider. My mother had gotten quite ill the year prior and I felt that it was my responsibility to take on a lot of my own schooling and basic living fees. Because of this, I took on 2 jobs that had me working 30+ hours a week while trying to maintain a full course load. Alongside my non-academic responsibilities, I was dealing with a lot of stress and a huge decrease in my mental state. I found my anxiety became crippling and stopped me from attending classes, socializing and interacting and having difficultly balancing school and basic day to day functions.

During my year, I experienced extenuating circumstances beyond my control. I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder as well as depression and it made my schooling incredibly difficult. I saw a therapist at LaSalle, reached out to a doctor named Dr. Ritsma through Student Wellness Services and tried to seek as much professional help as I could. During my fourth year, due to having trouble booking a psychiatrist, I began to see an occupational therapist at LaSalle who is named Katie Bala. Katie recognized my struggles immediately and wrote me a short term accommodation letter to provide to my classes for the fall semester. In the meantime, I met with a Dr. Ritsma again through Student Wellness and started taking anti-depressants as well as anxiety medication. After a couple weeks, I found the anti-depressants were having many negative side effects, so with the help of my family doctor back home in Toronto, I stopped taking them and relied solely on my anxiety medication. I met again with Ritsma at Student Wellness in the winter semester and she signed me up for a physical education program that is supposed to aid students with diagnoses such as these. I attempted to speak to a therapist at LaSalle again in the winter term, but was unable to get an appointment or have someone fill out a long term accommodation form for myself. During the winter semester, I lessened my course load to 3, but my mental health has still been unstable and deteriorating - making schooling and work incredibly difficult and, at times, unmanageable. I reached out the GNDS 212 Professor Elizabeth Brule- and she allowed me to have an incomplete grade but that in order to do so, I would need formal documentation. I have been in the long process of getting formal documentation but allowing an additional extension would allow me to find a suitable therapist and doctor and provide documentation for this course and in order for next year.


GNDS 212 is a course I would love to succeed in, as I want to minor in Gender Studies. Having a further extension on handing in my final assignments would allow me to work on them throughout the summer and focus solely on the classwork, since I will be taking time off work for my own mental health during this period. The extension will also allow me to seek more constant and stable help while being at home and lessen my class load for next year. After long consideration, I decided to take an extra year in order to space out my courses and allow myself more time to complete my degree and not overwhelm myself with schooling while working to maintain my mental health.