Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean Dr. Stephenson,

I am writing to waive the 21-day deadline I missed to appeal the Faculty??s decision that I must withdraw from Queen??s for a minimum of one year. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to explain my circumstances.

During my second year, in trying to do online classes during the lockdown, I was beginning to realize I was experiencing a much more significant than usual difficulty in self-regulating, self-managing, and staying on top of my academics. At the end of my fall 2020 semester, after much investigation, I was diagnosed with mixed type ADHD. Following my diagnosis, my mental health continued to decline as extreme anxiety caused by my lack of motivation and self-regulation continued to worsen daily, eventually turning into a full-scale depression. I was loosely meeting with Dr. Anna Elizabeth Klein from student wellness, as well as Tess Grant, an occupational therapist also from student wellness, to try and get to the bottom of and solve the issues I was experiencing. After already having been on medication for my ADHD since my diagnosis, Dr. Klein prescribed me anti-depressants in April of 2021. Upon not finding any positive change from the new medication, I elected to stop them and find alternative ways to improve my mental health. For summer 2021 I was seemingly doing much better and on the road to recovery, when in the second week of September of that year, I found myself in a domestic abuse situation with my then partner. Following this situation, my mental health reached an all-time low. I was separated from my family, could barely get out of bed, and felt that help was out of reach for a situation that was getting increasingly out of hand due to inactivity on my part, credited to my anxiety and ADHD. Having never struggled with mental health to this degree before, maintaining my stability took paramount, resulting in my academics taking the back seat. During that year, I formed a support system for myself amongst my friends, who have helped me tremendously. Unfortunately, the anxiety I felt toward school continued to grow, which culminated on May 24, 2022, when I was informed by yourself and the faculty that I was required to withdraw from my studies for a minimum of one year. This, combined with the stresses of everything else I had been dealing with, admittedly caused me to procrastinate submitting my appeal by the June 14 deadline. Since then, I??ve re-evaluated my priorities and the direction I want to go with my education. I have made many necessary changes to my life and daily routine, and I finally feel like I??m in a place where I can and want to devote my full attention to my academics. I understand now that I should have communicated with my professors and administrators (instead of avoiding them), or even taken a leave of absence. I truly thought I could handle all these burdens on my own, and I tried my best, but I was unable.

Being a student at Queen??s means everything to me. I have worked so hard to get here, and I am no longer in a place where I feel comfortable letting myself and my academics succumb to poor mental health. If I am granted the opportunity to appeal to be reinstated, I plan to first change my program from fine art to sociology. I am very grateful for my time spent in fine art but upon consideration of what I want for my future, I no longer find the fine art program conducive to my goals. Rather, I am projecting hopefully attending law school post-undergrad, and after researching the steps necessary to achieve that goal, I found sociology to be the best fit for me. Law school aside, sociology is a program I am genuinely interested in, curious about, and excited to delve into further. In regards to my mental health, I have recently taken action and moved back home to be closer to my familial support system, as well as remove myself from an environment unfavorable to my academic progress. Removing the distraction of constant, unsupervised freedom will make it much easier for me to put my academics at the forefront of my priorities. In addition to this, I plan to commit to regularly seeing a therapist/ counselor to help me manage my emotions so they don??t go into extremes again, as well as to have someone keep me held accountable for my schooling. Also, I will make sure to focus on better communication with my professors from now on to avoid falling once again out of sync with my future goals. All of this has been and will continue to keep helping me focus better on my schoolwork, stay on top of my classes, and overall manage my time more wisely and effectively.

Please understand that the circumstances that led to my required withdrawal do not make me a bad student. I??m honestly a very driven, very ambitious student who just truly had an awful, awful year. I hope you will give me a second chance. Thank you for considering my appeal.

Sincerely,

Luca Tullo, 20153512