The Rev’d W.L. “Chip” Prehn, Ph.D, has been asked to contribute the chapter on Episcopal schools to Faith-Based Schooling in the United States, a book scheduled for publication by Praeger Academic in early 2011. The volume will be co-edited by James Carper and Thomas Hunt, Professors of History at the Universities of South Carolina and Dayton, respectively. Prehn was recommended for the job by Dr. Daniel Heischman, Executive Director of the National Association of Episcopal Schools, New York, New York.
The editors of Faith-Based Schooling promise a “definitive study” of the history, nature, motives, and challenges of faith-based education in America, from the colonial era through our own time. The editors have commissioned scholars from most religious traditions to make contributions to the volume. Prehn will contribute 6000 words on the history and nature of schools identifying, more and less, with the Anglican and Episcopal religious tradition. Many of the finest schools in American history have possessed this Episcopal identity.
Prehn received the Ph.D in the History of American Education from the University of Virginia in 2005. He wrote the first-ever history of the school-making movement initiated by William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796-1877) and his protégés. These exemplary priests established several elite Church schools—the model Episcopal schools—admired by educators on both sides of the Atlantic.
Chip Prehn has been serving Saint Luke’s Church & School, San Antonio, on an “interim” basis since August 2005. Prehn is a Trustee of TMI-The Episcopal School of Texas. He served the school as Chaplain between 1996 and 2001, and as Assistant Headmaster in the 1999-2000 school year.
