A Methodist minister, James Marvin succeeded in getting Kansas high schools to adopt curricula that would ensure KU could teach classes at a college level instead of at a prep-school level. Despite budgets slashed because of drought, a grasshopper invasion in Kansas, and a silver panic across the nation, Marvin won funds for improvements, including a chemistry building and a stone wall to keep out wandering livestock.

On March 29, 1878, Chancellor Marvin called a general University holiday to allow – and to possibly provide incentive for – all members of the KU community to participate in Lawrence’s first Arbor Day festivities. Working in small groups overseen by faculty members, the students good-naturedly competed with one another to see how quickly they could set the hackberry, evergreen, elm, honey locust, and other seedlings into their assigned sections of land. By day's end, more than 300 young trees had found new homes on Mount Oread.

James Marvin became the third chancellor of KU in 1875 and served for 9 years in this role. Among the faculty he hired was E.H.S. Bailey, KU's first chemistry professor, who taught for 50 years until his death in 1933. During Marvin's tenure at KU, the university tripled its student population, University Hall was completed and other building projects completed despite fiscal difficulties caused by the 1873 silver panic, and new courses were added to the curriculum.

Due to continued difficulties with the Board of Regents, Marvin resigned from the chancellorship in June 1883, becoming the first superintendent of Haskell Indian Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) and ending his career as pastor with the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Lawrence. James Marvin passed away in 1901.