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The resignation of Dr. Ernest L. Wilkinson as president of the Brigham Young University was announced Thursday by the Board of Trustees in Salt Lake City.

Dr. Wilkinson also announced that he would resign as Chancellor of the Unified Church School System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Termination of both positions will be made as soon as satisfactory arrangements can be made and successors named for the posts, it was reported.

?This is not an easy step for me to take. I have received tremendous satisfaction from my work at the BYU and also with the Church School System assignment, but new challenges and responsibilities have developed which call for decisions in the near future,? Dr. Wilkinson said.

?As to the BYU I am grateful to an understanding Board of Trustees and to a competent and faithful faculty for the full measure of support they have given me. Without the support of the Board we would not have been able to build one of the most functional and beautiful campuses in America. To the faculty goes the honor and credit for training students of strong character and high scholarship, whose services are sought throughout the world.?

?I am equally proud of the advancements made and the competence and spirit of service of the faculties of Ricks College, the Institutes and Seminaries, the LDS Business College, Juarez Academy and over 20 elementary schools in Mexico. My heart will always abide with all of them,? Dr. Wilkinson continued.

The dynamic BYU leader is a senior partner in the law firm of Wilkinson, Cragun and Barker in Washington, D.C., a firm that he organized in 1940 and in which he has still retained an interest.

Dr. Wilkinson was appointed president of the Brigham Young University in 1950 and became Chancellor of the Unifed Church Systems in 1953. Under his leadership BYU has become the largest institution of higher learning in the Great Basin and the largest church-related university in the nation.