Throughout the 2025-2026 school year, Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams are working to collect 100 letters from universities and 250 letters from high schools required by the College Board to pilot the first nationwide course on women’s history.
Kristen and Serene have written a full length course proposal for the AP Women’s U.S. History course. You can read it here.
Want to get involved? Email serene@teachwapush.org or woodsk01@yahoo.com
Update About the Campaign for AP U.S. Women’s History (WAPUSH)
The campaign for an AP Women’s History course began in the summer of 2022 when Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams were selected to receive a prestigious teacher research grant from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Their original proposal was to write women into AP courses such as AP U.S. Government & Politics and AP Comparative Government & Politics. After they conducted research at the Schlesinger Library they felt strongly there were so many documents and stories about women they should petition the College Board for a standalone AP course. They began a petition which has collected nearly 4,000 signatures. Their campaign attracted the attention of Trevor Packer, Vice President of Curriculum for the College Board who expressed support for their initiative. Packer gave them a list of tasks that must be completed to pilot the course. These tasks include:
Gathering 100 letters of support from universities
Letters must demonstrate they are willing to grant credit for high school students taking this course. This has been completed, you can see many of the letters on this website: wapush.org/university-support-for-wapush/
Write a course proposal
This has been completed, you can see the WAPUSH course proposal at the link above
Gather syllabi from equivalent university courses
This has been completed
Collect 250 letters from high schools willing to offer the course
70+ letters have been collected so far, see the link above