"My classes have brought me face-to-face with some of the most important questions human beings have ever had to answer, and my professors have become friends, guiding me along the path."
—Jordan Hughes ('17)
Dr. Favelo teaches courses in the history of western civilization, Roman history, Greek history, and historical research methods at Patrick Henry College. Prior to coming to Patrick Henry College, he served for ten years as a lecturer at California State University Fresno, teaching history, literature, and Latin.
Dr. Favelo's passion is to facilitate students in their intellectual and spiritual development, primarily through the medium of a rigorous, Biblically-centered classical education, to the greater glory of God. He, his wife, and his six children live on a mountain farm in Loudoun County, VA, where they raise pigs, cows, ducks, and chickens.
Dr. Cory Grewell teaches classes in Western Literature, British Literature, Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and Literary Criticism at Patrick Henry College. He has published work on Owen Barfield and J.R.R. Tolkien as well as Contemporary Medievalism and Noir Fiction. His scholarly interests are Christianity and Literature, especially the imaginative intersection between reading, writing, and participating the Being of God; Renaissance Drama; Detective Fiction; and the works of the Inklings, especially Owen Barfield. His essay on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur, entitled “The Elegaic Fantasy of Past Christendom” featured in the book Inklings and Arthur won the Mythopoeic Society’s award for best Scholarly Book of the Year in Inklings Studies. Outside of academics, Dr. Grewell enjoys golf, baseball, and longform TV drama. He lives in Northern Virginia with his lovely wife, two handsome and charming sons, and cantankerous dachshund Gatsby.
Dr. Hake teaches a variety of literature courses, including Western Lit I and II in the core, and Charles Dickens, American Literature and Poetry in the upper division. He was a college professor/missionary for many years in Taiwan, and more recently launched Rivendell Study Center. He is especially concerned to see PHC students grow in discipleship and personal evangelism. His interests, in addition to literature and reading, include language learning, sailing, and backpacking.
In addition to teaching PHC's core courses of Logic and Philosophy, Dr. Roberts teaches the upper-level philosophy courses of Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, and Ethics. He is also the Program Director for the Classical Liberal Arts Major and the Philosophy Minor, as well as the Director of Distance Learning.
Dr. Roberts exhorts his students to love God with their minds by asking probing questions that aim to help them more fully comprehend the intersection of philosophy with biblical theology and practice.
Dr. Roberts' research interests focus on the intersection of philosophy and spiritual formation and the following areas of philosophy: metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of religion, and philosophical theology. He has presented papers at the meetings of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and the American Philosophical Association. He gave the PHC 2020 Fall Faith and Reason Lecture entitled “Faith, Reason, and Imagination: Cultivating the With-God Life in the Fulfillment of Vocation,” and published “Willardian Spiritual Formation, Novel Spiritual Disciplines, and Basketball: A Case Study,” in the Fall 2020 issue of the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care.
Dr. Roberts lives in Purcellville with his wife and five children.
Dr. Robert Spinney teaches American history courses at Patrick Henry College. He also teaches the college’s Historiography course, which is a semester-long examination of what it means to do history from a Christian perspective. The textbook that is currently being used in PHC’s sophomore-level American History course was written by Dr. Spinney. He has published two additional history books (a comprehensive history of Chicago and a history of 1935-1950 Nashville, Tennessee) and numerous ministry-related booklets with titles like Did God Create Sports Also? Thinking Christianly About Sports, Peeking Into the Devil’s Playbook: Satan’s Strategies for Tempting Christians to Sin, and Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Thinking Biblically About the Problem of Sin in Our World. In addition to serving as a pastor for six years, Dr. Spinney was formerly a member of the faculty at Trinity International University (Deerfield, IL).
Dr. Kristina Tanner (nee Lobenhofer) has taught in the Music Department at Patrick Henry College since 2007. Dr. Tanner has a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) in Piano from the University of Maryland, College Park, at which she taught class piano as a graduate assistant; a Master's of Music in Piano Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor's in Piano Performance, summa cum laude, with High Honors in Music History from Vanderbilt University. She was a Teaching Assistant in Ethnomusicology, Music Library/Bibliography, and Music Literature/History at the Peabody Conservatory. Dr. Tanner received the La Gesse Fellowship for performances in France and at Carnegie Hall, and has presented papers at the International Congress for Medieval Studies and the Capital Chapter of the American Musicological Society. She has in the past served as her church’s choir director, and has also served on the piano faculty of the MasterWorks Festival (Christian Performing Artists' Fellowship) as a staff accompanist, as well as a variety of music schools in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. metro area, and has won a variety of competitions in several states. She and her husband have six children.
Dr. West teaches Latin and Greek as well as courses in classical history and literature at PHC. His primary research interests are Roman social and political history; biography and historiography; the writings of Cicero and the Stoics; and ancient disability. His work on disability, which he is currently preparing for publication, develops a new methodology for discussing disability in a pre-modern context. He argues that since ancient thinkers did not make a clear distinction between disabled and non-disabled people, reading their works leads to the insight that disability is a universal aspect of the human condition. All human bodies and minds are vulnerable, and every person as well as all cultures face a need to grapple with and adapt to this reality.
A native of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a PHC alumnus (graduated 2014), Dr. West has a special appreciation for PHC's Christ-centered, classical pedagogy, which has deeply shaped his own trajectory as both a scholar and Christ-follower. He relishes the opportunity to pay this forward to a new generation of students. Outside of Greek and Roman classics, Dr. West enjoys video and board games, bluegrass music, and theater, especially the plays of Shakespeare.
Dr. Graedon Zorzi specializes in early modern moral, political, and religious thought. His research focuses on theological anthropology and the foundations of liberalism. Prior to joining the faculty, he spent two years as Assistant Professor of Theology and Philosophy at George Fox University. His dissertation won the 2021 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise and was awarded University Distinction at Yale as well as Departmental Distinction in both the Political Science and Religious Studies departments. Dr. Zorzi spent time as a visiting graduate student studying government at Georgetown University and theology at Oxford University. He is an ordained pastor, resident in the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic of the Anglican Church in North America.
