Benjamin J. McFarland

When I teach our Natural Sciences Capstone seminar class, I must give the graduating seniors…

In April, the actions of the Washington state legislature were discussed on the SPU faculty…

“I will endeavor by a very simple and commonplace method to lead you by experience…

If I could tell my college-aged self to read just one book, it would be…

We are in the middle of a run in the publication of “new histories.” In…

In the previous post, I compared the arguments of overwhelmed NYU students to those of…

You might have heard that organic chemistry professor Maitland Jones Jr. is no longer teaching…

Seven years ago, I took a teaching sabbatical in Burundi. When I set foot on…

I made many mistakes in my oral qualifying exam, halfway through grad school. The first…

In my work as a pre-med advisor, I help students navigate the pictures and words…

In Part 1 of this essay, I argued that the structure of a flame is,…

My friend left academia for industry last month. He posted online: “I spent years hearing…

Sidarta Ribeiro, in The Oracle of Night: The History and Science of Dreams, has written…

Coming back together for education this Fall is a long process that is more a…

A year and a half ago, in the middle of lockdown, it seemed like reunion…

Two weeks ago, a meme circulated with two pictures, labeled “My Fall Plans” and “The…

In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, the character Lucien keeps a library of “every story that…

In the space of about a year, three big trees fell in middle of the…

In the first part of this post, I discussed the pressures academics face with a…