Ethan Allen Hitchcock Shepley Sr. and his wife, Sophie, host a picnic for incoming students at a freshman orientation event in the fall of 1954. Ethan Shepley, the eighth chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees (1951-54) , its 10th chancellor (1953-1961) and a 1922 graduate of the school of Law, served the University in many ways until his death in 1975. His service was marked by a commmitment to build the University in to a national insitiution by significant capital construction on both the Hilltop and Medical campuses and particularly by the development of the redidential complex that allowed the University to draw students from every geographic region. Shepley was chosen by the American Associateion of University Professors as the 1959 recipient of its Alexander Meiklejhon Award for Acedemic Freedom in recognition of his strong defense of the principle of free inquiry.