Course Changes for the ’25-’26 School Year

As the ’24–’25 school year draws to a close, course changes are at the forefront of many Deerfield students’ minds. This year, the Academic Affairs Office has added many new courses to the roster, ranging from new science classes to an expanded suite of economics classes.

In addition to Honors Economics, Deerfield will offer two new choices for students with an interest in economics in the upcoming school year. Economics: Principles and Perspectives is a full-year course that will put less emphasis on the quantitative side of economics, while Topics in Behavioral Economics will be a one-term spring elective focused on the intersection between psychology and economics.

History and Social Sciences Department Head Brian Hamilton explained the motive for the change, citing it as an opportune moment since “there’s been long-running interest in economics among Deerfield students.” Despite the strong enthusiasm for economics on campus, Hamilton said, “We’ve also seen students opt not to request the course out of concern that their math capabilities might not support their success in the course.” These new courses will be taught by Pedro Viega de Almeida and Simon Jarcho, who will join the history faculty next year.

In response to these changes for the economics courses next year, JT Gally ’26 said, “It can be hard to make a one-size-fit-all [course], and splitting it now allows people to either take econ[omics] at a [more] relaxed pace than they would have otherwise or to even take econ[omics] if they weren’t able to take honors or make the prerequisites.”

The History and Social Sciences Department also plans to release two new electives for upperclassmen: Brazilian History and Culture and Identity and Global Cold War, lasting one and two terms respectively. Interested seniors will also have the opportunity to explore their more niche historical interests in a new 500-level course, Honors Historical Research. Meanwhile, interested sophomores will now have the option to take a third 200-level humanities course: Civics and Government.

The Science Department will also undergo significant changes, expanding upperclassmen’s research options. There will be a new level two Environmental Science Research course, which is analogous to the Chemistry and Biology research courses, and a new Physics 2 course that is not calculus-based.

Physics teacher David Hallwood cited student interest in both fields as a major factor behind this decision. “There are a lot of students who are interested in doing more science,” he said. “Physics in particular didn’t offer anything at a lower math level [and] people are wanting a second year of environmental science.”

The Science Department will also change the Honors Biology 2: Research course, a change led by Chemistry and Biology teacher Jenn Pousont. The course will shift away from evolutionary biology and towards molecular biology while integrating some aspects of chemistry such as organic chemistry. Dr. Pousont mentioned a mixture of personal expertise and student interest as factors for the change and said, “we’ve had a lot of interest in molecular sciences” and “my graduate and postdoctoral studies were in structural biology, so that’s the area where I can go deepest with students.” She will replace Chemistry and Biology teacher Caleb Corliss as the teacher for Honors Biology 2, now named Honors Biology 2: Biochemistry.

Despite general excitement for molecular biology and other non-evolutionary biological fields, some students are lamenting the removal of evolutionary biology from the curriculum. Justin Wang ’27 explained the importance of evolutionary biology conceptually and practically. “The course encapsulates how life got on Earth [and] how diversity becomes the essence of nature... to be able to teach that [to] high schoolers, it gives them perspective that there’s a reason for us to exist [and] that we [should] be happy and amazed,” he said. “It opens up other opportunities in the future, such as pre-med. In fact, we use evolutionary biology to study the history of viruses and to develop vaccines.”

However, Gally looks at how the Science Department has integrated the course, saying, “it more reflects the type of biology that’s done in [Biology] 1H and feels like a natural extension of that.”

Sophomore English will also undergo major changes next year, a change spearheaded by all tenth-grade English teachers after reassessing the goals of the current sophomore English course, Defining Literary Traditions. English teacher Hadley Westman mentioned that the English Department brainstormed ideas for the new course with the aim of allowing students to leave their sophomore year with confidence in their abilities. The new course will focus more on English reading and writing in general, shifting away from British literature. As such, the English Department has renamed the course to The Reading and Writing Workshop. Ms. Westman underscored the importance of this change, saying it was a “rare opportunity to work together [and] rebuild one of those courses [and] to learn from the great work that other teachers are doing.”

With a variety of new courses for students of all grades to choose from, the Academy is trying to increase accessibility and depth in its classes. The changes are intended to address not only the desires of the student body but also changes that teachers themselves want to see made.