This year, Kent School created the History and Social Sciences Department, unifying previously separate disciplines into a single department. According to Dr. McNeil, this decision was not a single-factor-driven result, but rather “three different motivations that sort of converged.”

The first main drive that Dr. MacNeil highlights is the avoidance of what he called as “accidental” curricular structures. In previous years, courses such as psychology have been moving between the department of History and Science depending on the teaching staff rather than the actual content and nature of the course. “It doesn’t fit neatly into a high school curriculum,” Dr. MacNeil explained, noting that psychology covers a myriad of topics, raising questions about the belonging of this course in terms of departments. 

A second factor involves the shift in role in the History department, as it used to include courses that went beyond the basics of History, such as economics, political science, etc. While being convenient, this structure lacked rationality: “Sometimes that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” the dean noted, underscoring the need for a clearer division among the department. 

The third motivation came from the current religion department. Due to various reasons, the department now has only one faculty member, facing the problem of running a one-person department,so the school decided to adjust the departmental structure to provide more inclusion and collaboration for the teachers of these courses. 

All together, these motivations led to the creation of a 3-stranded social science department. The department now has a more detailed organization of courses: a history strand focused on traditional historical study, a social science strand encompassing subjects such as psychology, economics, and political science, and a religion strand dedicated to religious studies in place of the religion department. 

For example, AS psychology, which focuses more towards the biology sector of psychology, will be renamed AS neuroscience and will remain in the Science Department, while regular-level Psychology will be more appropriately placed with other social science courses. 

Despite the shift in structure, Dr. MacNeil noted that there will be no major changes in terms of graduation credit requirements for students. Students are still required to complete eight terms of courses in the Social Science or History department and one term of religion. This also changed and widened the choices that students have when it comes to completing such requirements.