William
Hugh McFarlane served in the Army Air Force as a pilot during World
War II and subsequently attended college on the G.I. Bill. Like a
number of other members of Mason's early faculty and administrators,
Dr. McFarlane worked at the University of Virginia, where he received
a doctorate in 1957. He served as director of the Virginia State Council
of Higher Education from 1958 to 1964, during which time the University
of Virginia was authorized to state a two-year branch program in Northern
Virginia that would be later become George Mason University. From
1964-1967, he oversaw the Virginia Associated Research Center, where
he organized and managed a university consortium to administer NASA's
Space Radiation Effects Laboratory at Langley Field, Virginia. He
served on the 1965 state Higher Education Study Commission, which
recommended a new regional university in Northern Virginia as it is
highest priority.
Dr. McFarlane
was hired as chairman of the humanities department in 1968 at the
then-named George Mason College of the University of Virginia. He
described the college at that time as a place where "you knew
most of the students and certainly every one of the faculty members."
Dr. McFarlane served as humanities chairman until 1979, and went on
to found the philosophy and religious studies department in 1974,
where he served as its chair for five years. He also chaired the Arts
and Sciences faculty and the CAS Committee on Academic Policies and
planning. A man of many interests, his interests included religion,
higher education policy, and the education of women. While at George
Mason University, he also ran a consulting firm that helped newly
developed institutions of higher education in the United States and
abroad. He retired in 1986, but agreed to come back to serve for one
year as acting department chair in 1988.
After
Dr. McFarlane retired, he remained extremely busy. He continued to
serve as a consultant. Dr. McFarlane remained interested in theology
and completed a lay ministry educational program in 1999.
Dr. McFarlane
also embarked on a major project to pull together the complete history
of George Mason University from its earliest days. He interviewed
and recorded for posterity many people connected with the university
and its antecedents. The McFarlane Collection consists of correspondence,
news clippings, reports, meeting minutes, speeches, and audiotape
interviews, covering Mason during years 1949-1977. Through the efforts
of Dr. Robert Hawkes of the History Department, the McFarlane Collection
was donated to the Libraries' Special Collections and Archives (SC&A)
in the 1990s.
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Finding Aid to McFarlane Papers
