Now that the 2025-2026 school year is in the rearview, it’s a fitting time to reflect on lessons learned and how they can impact the future—and to spotlight D-E’s distinguished History Department. “Students really try to think about historical questions as things that relate to people surviving and doing their best… as a way to compare and share experience with people in the past, even if they don’t share identities or time period,” said History Department Chair Alexander Russell-Walker, who is in his 13th year at D-E. These lessons, he added, encourage empathic thinking through historical study.
Watch our latest Spotlight video and read on to learn more about how our History Department aims to give students the tools they need to make connections between what they read in textbooks and modern life.
