College Board announces exciting New AP Course

College Board Communications

February 2, 2023

Today, the Advanced Placement Program delivered its long-planned release of the official framework for the AP Cruelty Studies course. The official framework has been under development for nearly five years.

“We’re truly excited to offer this course,” said Jerome Sellers, College Board Communications Specialist. “Cruelty is an ongoing project in humanity as evidenced in our politics, religion, policy, entertainment, health care, and so much more. The real challenge of this course is trying to figure out the small percentage of what to keep in. There’s just so many options and examples in history to choose from, and that’s just in the 21st century.”

“AP Cruelty Studies can’t possibly cover the full range of how humanity’s cruelty knows no bounds throughout history,” said Ken Powers, College Board VP of Curriculum. “For that we would recommend an advanced college degree program and even then, I don’t think that would possibly cover it all. But you could look at one part of cruelty. For our purposes, we’re taking a look at an overview of cruelty so that students can see that for some people in positions of power, cruelty really is the point. We want students equipped to identify what’s going on and be able to get these deranged folks some help before they hurt anyone else.”

AP Cruelty Studies is an interdisciplinary course that draws on a variety of fields — contemporary history of…