William Hugh McFarlane, educator and administrator, had worked in higher education for nearly three decades when he retired from George Mason University in 1986. Born in Chicago, McFarlane was a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and then, after the war, entered the University of Virginia on the G.I. Bill. Later, while completing his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, he worked as student aid director, assistant professor of humanities, and briefly, as the director in charge of fundraising for the Virginia Foundation of Independent Colleges. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1957, McFarlane accepted the position of Director of the State Council of Higher Education, in Richmond, which he held for six years. From 1964-1967 he directed the Virginia Associated Research Center where he organized and managed a university consortium administering NASA's Space Radiation Effects Laboratory at Langley Field, Virginia. Then, in 1968, McFarlane began his eighteen-year career at George Mason University where he was chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies from 1968-1979.