The School of Humanities and Social Sciences was founded in April 1995, intergrating the former Department of Social Sciences, the Department of Foreign Languages, the Institute of Higher Education and the Office of Ideology Education and Research.

In July 1953, 17 faculty successively gathered at the new campus of then Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel Engineering to set up a politics teaching and research team under the supervision of the Section of Publicity and Education of the institute, then under the Publicity Department when the Party Committee of the institute was established. At the time, DU Weixin served as the dean of the Office of Teaching and Research, which is in charge of the teams respectively responsible for teaching CPC history, Marxism-Leninism political economy, and later philosophy.

In 1954, the party branch of the politics teaching and research team was established.

In 1955, the party branches of politics team, Russian team, and sports team were established.

In 1956, the Politics Teaching and Research Team's Reference Room was established, then under the management of YV Shenyang. The Party Committee of the institute employed Soviet experts from the Central Party School to guide the work of the teaching and research team.

In the second half of 1958, the Party Committee restored the Marxism-Leninism teaching and research group. ZHU Yaozhong was the director and LI Tao the party secretary.

In September 1959, three courses on political theory were resumed: CPC history, philosophy, and political economy. However, a month later, Marxist theory was banned again from being instructed in class, caused by the anti-rightist movement and the educational revolution.

In the summer of 1959 and the early 1960, the School resumed the instruction of Marxist theory and added a natural dialectics teaching team by bringing in a batch of students that had been admitted to the Party and replenishing the Marxism-Leninism team. The systematic teaching of Marxist theory was constantly disturbed due to the influence of leftist ideas at the time.

At the end of 1961, eight teachers from the Administration and Management Institute, Ministry of Metallurgy of China, were reassigned to the Marxism-Leninism teaching and research group.

During the decade of the Cultural Revolution, the teaching of Marxist theory was severely damaged, teaching, with the team dissolved and the teachers severely impacted.

In 1972, following the resumption of universities of science and technology, the School reinstated the Marxism-Leninism team. In fact, the majority of the teachers had been scattered across various schools of the university, forming teaching groups and working under the leadership of the party branch of each school. Under the historical conditions of that time, it was impossible to bring the Marxist theory course on track.

After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, the Marxist theoretical education in Beijing Institute of Iron and Steel Engineering was fully restored and developed. According to the development plan of the university—to build the university as a multi-disciplinary one that combined engineering, science, management, and literature, the party committee of the institute announced the establishment of the Department of Social Sciences on January 29, 1984. It was formed by the Office of Marxism-Leninism Teaching and Research, the Chinese Teaching Team (under the Education Office) and the Office of Ideology Education Teaching and Research, under the supervision of FAN Yuanxing, deputy secretary of the institute’s party committee. On May 16, approved by the Ministry of Metallurgy of China, GUO Wuben became the Dean of the Department of Social Sciences, serving two terms until the end of 1989. Deputy deans include DAI Guikang, LI Song, LUO Jiezhi and LV Xiulan.

In January 1990, WANG Qitian took over as the third Dean of the Department of Social Sciences, with DAI Guikang, XU Fang and WANG Guixi as the deputy deans; ZHANG Youtao as the party secretary of the department and LV Jingsheng the deputy secretary. The term of the office lasted for four years.

On March 24, 1994, the University Party Committee announced the fourth leadership team of the Department, with XU Fang as the Dean, ZHANG Shangquan, ZHOU Xiangbin and WANG Guixi as the deputy deans, LV Jingsheng as the Party Secretary, and WANG Mei and LIU Xiangjun as the deputy secretaries. This term of the office lasted until the establishment of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in April 1995.