Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of the Classics Department,

My name is Lalique Allan and I am appealing to drop CLST 103 (Winter, 2019). This is my first year at Queens University and this year also came with many learning experiences. Throughout this year, I encountered some unexpected personal events while managing a part-time job at a local church, adjusting to the changes that come along with attending University, and also managing major new changes with my mental health.

I am appealing to drop CLST 103. I have struggled with the course from the beginning of the term because of the heavy memory-based content of the course. This is compounded by some unforeseen family issues which have created a great deal of mental and emotional stress for me and has been impacting my ability to be successful in this course.

I am a triplet, who was raised by a single mother since I was 4 years old. Our father abandoned us children and the family when he walked away from the family without even saying goodbye to us. At 4 years old, my siblings and I saw him one night before we went to bed and we never saw him again over the last 14 years. In the Fall of 2018 around the time of my midterm exams, he suddenly contacted me through social media-twitter. Not only has he publicly put my personal life out on social media that he had not seen my siblings and I in 14 years and had not been involved in our lives in all that time. He said that he still cared about us and is very happy that we were in university. Myself and my siblings were very optimistic that he was re-entering our lives to build a relationship with us again only to go through this emotional and physiological roller-coaster of him re-appearing and disappearing again as quickly as he reappeared. My siblings and I were devastated.

This was a very traumatic situation for me as I have gone through years of accepting his absence from my life and watching my family struggle to accept his absence as well. In addition, the very impersonal manner of contacting me through Twitter after years of struggling with his absence was very off-putting and upsetting for me. In the past, I have experienced panic and anxiety attacks to some extent, however, my family and church community helped me to work through it and I would consider my mental health to be manageable then. This year my mental health took a turn for the worst and posed many new challenges for me. My father resurfacing in my life has created a great deal of mental and emotional upheaval in my life. In addition, being away from home, I do not have the support networks that was built around me over the years to cope. I began to get very anxious at times and have an overwhelming wave of emotions take over. This resulted in me sleeping less and having a very hard time focusing.

During the fall term of classes, I was only enrolled in 4 courses and I was able to manage this workload in addition to my part-time job. During the winter term, after visiting academic advisors I was under the impression that I would need to take a 5th course this term if I wanted to graduate within the typical 4 years of undergrad. However, I did not account for the emotional and psychological stress of my father trying to re-enter my life would have on my current academic load, in conjunction with a necessary part-time job. Not having any financial support from my father means money is tight in my family and I need to work. Our finance is more compromised by the fact that my mother's job was sent offshore recently and she is now unemployed with three kids starting university at the same time.

Now that I realize CLST 103 course content is heavily memorization based, I found it increasingly difficult to focus and retain the information as my mental health is not at its best now. After some reflection, I should have dropped this course earlier in the year, however, I was not aware of how much of a toll the events that were happening in my life would impact my studies.

I have recently decided I would like to major in Global Development Studies. I am aware that if this course is dropped, I will be 6 credits behind, which I will make up by taking a 6 credit Global Development summer course in my summer of second year going to third year. If I am granted permission to drop this course, I will be able to delegate more of my time to focus on studying for my other exams this semester. I am now becoming more aware of the counselor and mental health services here at Queens, and I plan to make better use of these services to be more aware of my own mental health and avoid a similar situation. I am seeking to visit a counselor in my hometown to get guidance on how to move forward with my emotional stress stemming from school, my financial situation and my father. I would be grateful if you took this appeal into consideration. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Lalique Allan