A champion of Jesuit education

It was during his own college days that James Prehn, S.J., first felt the call to join the Jesuits. Since entering the order in 1988, Father Prehn has served in a number of different roles at high schools and universities, including as a part-time faculty member and rector of the Jesuit community at Loyola. And in 2016, Loyola president Jo Ann Rooney, JD, LLM, EdD, named Father Prehn to the position of vice president and special advisor to the president for mission and identity.

Father Prehn has a longstanding commitment to strengthening and furthering the mission of Jesuit education. Attending a Jesuit university is a distinctive experience, he said, and it should be one that makes students reflect on their own personal goals and on how they can help to change the world for the better.

“I have every confidence that it’s an education that does make a difference because of the reflection that is part and parcel of going to a Jesuit school,” he said. “We hope that sense of the Ignatian mission seeps into the work that our faculty do, as well as students and staff—that everybody has the sense that they’re part of something larger than themselves.”