Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Queen??s,


The reason for this letter is to shed light on a traumatic event that led me to have a less-than-favorable academic performance in the Winter 2022 semester. I am writing this letter to specifically appeal my ASTR 102 final grade and request to be granted a pass/fail on the course by the faculty of Arts & Sciences. The aforementioned traumatic event occurred in March 2022 when a close friend of mine, and fellow Queen??s University student suddenly passed after a freak accident. It is very likely that you know of who I am referring to, Liam Geddes was an impressive young man in the Kinesiology department who also played for the Queen??s varsity rugby team.

Over the course of the last year, Liam and I had become friends through mutual connections and quickly became very close when we realized how similar we both were. One of my favourite memories with Liam was when him and I, and one of our mutual friends caught COVID-19 just before the holidays and were forced to isolate ourselves in our student house where we spent our days eating tasteless food and binge watching all the Harry Potter movies. What seemed to be such a funny situation we found ourselves in, would later become one of the last things I would remember about my good friend. Just as faith would have it, only a handful of weeks before his passing, Liam, myself and two of our friends decided to spend our reading week at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun. I still remember being hesitant to choke up the 1200, debating if the trip would really be worth it. Looking back I will be forever grateful for spending what now seems like an insignificant amount of money to spend a full 7 days with my friend.

The reason for this letter is to explain how the sudden death of my good friend, played a crucial role in what would become my least academically successful semester in my two years at Queen??s. After Liam??s passing, I was given a 3 week period of academic consideration where I was able to completely disconnect from anything academic. Although that period of academic consideration was beneficial in giving me the much needed time and space that I needed at the time to deal with the trauma, 3 weeks simply was not enough time to come back and perform academically. Luckily for me, my schedule last semester contained only four courses, three of which I considered to be ??easier?, which made it easier to reintegrate after my return. However, ASTR102 was the one course in which my performance did not ??bounce back? after my return from my 3 week period of academic consideration. The course itself contains a lot of material, introducing a new subject per week throughout the semester. When the time came for me to return from my academic consideration, not only did I need to catch up on 3 weeks of brand-new material, but also keep up with the current week??s material. Simply put, it was already hard to play catch-up in all my courses in my return, but it was noticeably harder in my Astronomy class, and unfortunately by the time the final exam came around, I was just not able to do well on the exam.

I scored below 60% on the final exam and my average plummeted from a high 70s, low 80s to a high 60s average, easily becoming the worst final grade I??ve received at Queen??s. Before the Winter 2022 semester, my GPA floated around the 3.7 range, something I was, and am quite proud of. I am simply trying to avoid that a tragic & obviously traumatic event tarnishes the hard work that has gone into these last 2 years at Queen??s; I think more than anything, that would simply be unfortunate. I??m respectfully requesting that the faculty of Arts & Sciences grants me a pass/fail on my ASTR 102 course to avoid any detrimental effects that its final grade has had on my overall GPA.

I hope I??ve pleaded my case well enough and I thank you for the consideration you will be giving to the present request. Obviously, I will respect whatever decision your faculty takes.


Best Regards,

Devin Esposito
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