Montgomery College, in Maryland, has chosen DeRionne P. Pollard, who now leads Las Positas College, in California, as its next president, the Maryland institution announced on Tuesday. She will replace Brian K. Johnson, who resigned in December, three months after the Board of Trustees decided not to renew his contract. Ms. Pollard has been at Las Positas for two years and previously was a vice president at the College of Lake County, in Illinois.

NorthWest Arkansas Community College has reinstated an adjunct professor who was told last week that he wouldn't be rehired because of his comments about a local judge, the Associated Press reported. The professor, Terry Phillips, who teaches business law, had told a local newspaper he was "appalled" that Judge Dave Bisbee had not resigned after being arrested on ethics charges. Judge Bisbee's wife is a member of the college's Board of Trustees. Mr. Phillips said his supervisor told him last Monday that he would not be rehired because of an ethics violation on his part. But in a statement quoted by a Web site for KNWA-TV, the college said on Friday that that decision was not final, and that Mr. Phillips would be offered a contract for the fall.

A student at Arizona State University is part of a coalition of civil-rights groups and individuals that  filed a federal lawsuit on Monday challenging Arizona's new immigration law, The Arizona Republic reported. The student, Jesús Cuauhtémoc Villa, is a New Mexico resident who worries that his New Mexico driver's license will not be accepted as proof of citizenship under the law, which goes into effect July 29 and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. Other participants in the suit, the fifth to challenge the law, include the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Also on Monday, a student group that is pressing for passage of the Dream Act, federal legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for some students, reported that several leaders of the immigrant-student movement were arrested after staging a...

A former Harvard University senior is facing 20 criminal charges for allegedly creating fake transcripts and letters of recommendation to get into Harvard, The Boston Globe reported. According to a statement from the district attorney for Middlesex County, Mass., the student, Adam Wheeler, of Delaware, fraudulently received more than $45,000 in grants, scholarships, and financial-aid money, and used forged academic materials both when applying to Harvard and afterward, when he applied for Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships. Mr. Wheeler, who is 23, has not entered a plea to the charges. A court hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning.

As Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, gave the commencement speech on Sunday at Pomona College, scores of protesters gathered on the steps of a campus building to protest U.S. immigration policies and Arizona's controversial new immigration law. According to the Los Angeles Times, the ceremony continued despite the protest. Organizers particularly oppose a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as Section 287(g), which allows local officers to enforce federal immigration laws. Authorities in Cobb County, Ga., used that provision in a case involving a Kennesaw State University student who faces deportation after being stopped for a minor traffic offense.

Richard F. Celeste, the former ambassador to India and governor of Ohio who has led Colorado College since 2002, will step down as the institution's president next year, the college has announced. At the time of his appointment, faculty members expressed "some trepidation and a lot of anticipation" about having a nonacademic in the president's office. But he soon won points for defending academic freedom, standing his ground when religious and political leaders in the state opposed his invitation to a Palestinian activist, Hanan Ashrawi, to speak at a campus symposium. Among other achievements under his leadership, the college has improved its student retention and graduation rates and added 20 tenure-track faculty positions.

A federal indictment accuses nine employees of a U.S. Department of Education contractor in Iowa of illegally gaining access to President Obama’s student-loan records, the Des Moines Register reported. None of the accused have entered pleas, and none of them commented to the newspaper on the allegations against them.

The federal database that contains information on millions of student borrowers has been the focus of security concerns before. In 2007, the department acknowledged it had found 261 cases in which lenders or marketers were suspected of using the system to improperly collect information on potential borrowers.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked one-day furloughs scheduled next week for employees of New York State, including public-university professors, The New York Times reported. Unions representing more than 50,000 faculty and staff members at the State University of New York and the City University of New York had filed legal challenges to the furlough plan, which Gov. David A. Paterson says is necessary to keep the state from running out of money at the end of the month. In an order issued on Wednesday, Judge Lawrence E. Kahn of the U.S. District Court in Albany also barred Mr. Paterson from seeking any further furloughs pending a hearing set for May 26.

The University of Illinois has named Michael J. Hogan, who is now president of the University of Connecticut, as its next president. Mr. Hogan will take office July 1, pending approval by Illinois's Board of Trustees next week. He will succeed B. Joseph White, who resigned last year in the wake of an admissions scandal, and Stanley O. Ikenberry, a longtime past president who has been serving as the system's interim leader.

Mr. Hogan, who has been at Connecticut since 2007, won public praise for turning down a pay increase and bonuses in strapped budget years. According to the Chicago Tribune, he is taking a pay cut to come to Illinois.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has revoked a scientist's laboratory privileges for five years, saying he conducted unauthorized experiments that could have posed a risk to human health, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The scientist, Gary Splitter, a tenured professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine, says the work in question, involving antibiotic-resistant strains of brucellosis, was conducted by graduate students without his knowledge. Brucellosis is an animal disease that can affect people, and the bacteria that cause it are among the "select agents" regulated by the federal government. The university agreed to pay a $40,000 federal fine in September to settle alleged violations of those regulations, according to the Associated Press.