Philip Bunn as a professor and ISI award recipient

Philip Bunn (Political Theory, '17), who currently serves on PHC’s Alumni Association Board and as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Covenant College, was awarded an Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) Top 20 Under 30 Award this fall.

Philip attributes much of this successful trajectory to PHC’s influence.

He initially came to PHC planning to go to law school after graduation. Then, he took the core classes Freedoms Foundations I and II. He walked out with the realization that “it wasn’t necessarily law, but ideas and thinkers who have been influential both inside and outside the church as they try to think about how to live together peacefully in a political community,” that interested him.

During his junior year, as a part of these newfound interests, Philip got involved in ISI when he applied for their Honors Program. There, he discussed The Great Tradition, Conservatism, Russell Kirk, and more. “That was stuff that we were already talking about at PHC,” Philip said.

Because PHC had provided him with a strong intellectual base, Philip was able to succeed in ISI’s academic environment. Now, almost 10 years later, ISI has honored Philip by selecting him as one of its top young alumni doing great things in the United States, by presenting him with a Top 20 Under 30 Award.

Another class Philip took at PHC that he greatly enjoyed, because it piqued his interest in technology, was Modern and Contemporary Political Thought by Dr. Roberta Bayer.

It was no surprise then, when he went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a master’s degree and PhD in political science, that his dissertation was on technology and politics.

“I looked specifically at modern thinkers, especially around the industrial area, at how they thought about machines and liberty and how that might be useful for us today as we’re having some conversations around that,” Philip said.

This past year, Philip started teaching at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. He typically teaches two classes a day on either American politics or political theory, such as American Government and History of Political Theory.

Yet, even as a professor, Philip, living in Chattanooga with his wife and two children, still finds time to serve on PHC’s Alumni Association Board.

“It’s been really cool to be a part of the board,” Philip said. “Specifically, because these alumni, by volunteering to be on the board and spending a lot of their time in committee meetings and more, are showing that this is a place that they want to give back to, that PHC has made a difference in their lives, and is making a difference in the students' lives right now.”

 Patrick Henry College exists to glorify God by challenging the status quo in higher education, lifting high both faith and reason within a rigorous academic environment; thereby preserving for posterity the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is the foundation of America.