About the Campaign for AP Women’s U.S. History (WAPUSH)
The campaign for an AP Women’s U.S. History course began in 2022 when Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams received a teacher research grant from the Schlesinger Library at Harvard to write women into existing AP courses. After working at the Schlesinger Library, they believed there were so many important documents about women they should petition the College Board for a standalone AP course. Their petition collected over 4,000 signatures. As a result of the outreach done by the WAPUSH team, the campaign attracted the attention of Trevor Packer, VP of Curriculum for the College Board who expressed his support. They were then given a list of required tasks in order to pilot the course.
These tasks include:
- Collect 100 letters of support from universities: Letters must demonstrate the university is willing to grant credit to high school students taking this course. This part of the project has been completed thanks to the volunteer work of Allison Tyra from Infinite Women. You can see many of the letters on this page.
- Write a course proposal: Completed, click the blue button above
- Collect 250 letters from high schools willing to offer the course: 70+ letters have been collected so far. See this page for more information
WAPUSH Goals for the 2026-2027 school year
Serene and Kristen wrote a full length course proposal that is under peer review by leading historians and scholars.
Most importantly, during the 2026-2027 school year, Kristen and Serene are working to collect 250 letters from high schools as required by the College Board to pilot WAPUSH.