Former President Bill Clinton has signed on as "honorary chancellor" of Laureate International Universities, a global network of institutions owned by Laureate Education Inc., the company announced. As an adviser to Laureate on education and civic-engagement issues, Mr. Clinton is expected to raise the Baltimore-based company's international profile. "This is huge" for Laureate, Amna Kirmani, a marketing professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, told The Sun. "It will bring a huge amount of credibility to the company."

It appears that some student protesters at San Francisco State University did have an agreement to pay fines of no more than $50 apiece in exchange for ending their occupation of the university's business school in December, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. After the university told the students they would have to pay $744 each, an assistant dean, Will Flowers, denied having made such a deal. On Friday, the university issued a "clarification," saying Mr. Flowers "now recalls discussing a minimal damage sanction— 'something like $50' —with two students." The university reopened the disciplinary appeals process for the students, the newspaper said, but did not reduce their fines.

The University of Wyoming argues in court documents filed on Saturday that safety concerns justify its refusal to allow William Ayers to speak at a building on the Laramie campus this week, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. Mr. Ayers, a former radical who is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Wyoming student are suing the institution for refusing to rent space for an event organized by a student after an earlier speaking engagement was canceled. A federal judge will consider on Monday on whether to force the university to allow the event to take place on the campus.

Federal and local prosecutors delivered a "forceful and direct message" to the president of Reed College last week: "Shut down illegal drug use and distribution" at the Portland, Ore., institution, The Oregonian reported. The president, Colin Diver, relayed that warning to students in an e-mail message on Friday.

The prosecutors' meeting with the president came a month after a Reed student died of a heroin overdose, the college's second such fatality in two years, and a week before the start of a popular spring festival that has experienced drug problems in the past. The prosecutors reminded Mr. Diver that institutions that fail to adequately combat illegal drug activity can lose federal funds. "It was definitely a command performance," Mr. Diver said of the meeting. "They've got some pretty big sticks to hold over our head."

Kentucky's primary need-based college grant program is running out of money and is notifying students that it will be able to pay grants only to students who applied by March 7, even though the deadline was March 15, The Courier-Journal, a newspaper in Louisville, reported. The cutoff decision will affect thousands of students who were expecting to receive College Access grants of up to $1,900. There is a glimmer of hope, however: The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority based its decision on the lesser of two budget proposals in the state legislature, and a coming special session could find more money for the program, a senior official with the agency said.

The trustees of Trinity University, in San Antonio, Tex., have voted to retain the words “in the year of our Lord” on the institution’s diplomas, disappointing a student group that had wanted the phrase dropped. The university was founded by Presbyterians in 1869 but is no longer religiously affiliated. In a written statement, the university affirmed its commitment to respecting "differing opinions, including differences in religious beliefs and practices," but said the board felt the wording was appropriate, "given Trinity’s history and heritage." The student group accepted the board's decision and pledged to "continue to represent, and advocate for, diversity on our campus," the San Antonio Express-News reported.

The faculty at Columbus State University has voted no confidence in the Georgia institution's president and provost, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. Sixty-two percent of the faculty members who participated expressed no confidence in the president, Timothy S. Mescon, and 77 percent expressed no confidence in the provost, Inessa Levi. The faculty had cited seven major concerns with the administrators, including midyear changes they imposed in the standards for tenure and promotion. Mr. Mescon announced this week that those changes would be postponed.

A union that represents about 400 non-tenure-track instructors and adjunct faculty members at Western Michigan University says it has reached a tentative agreement for its first contract with the institution, according to the Associated Press and an announcement by the American Federation of Teachers' Faculty and College Excellence campaign. The union, the Professional Instructors Organization, is affiliated with the AFT and was approved in a vote last summer. While details of the contract will not be announced until after it is ratified by union members and the university's governing board, the union's president, Karl Schrock, said the deal would improve working conditions. "We have been able to secure modest gains on all fronts," he said in the AFT campaign's announcement.

Gov. John Hoeven of North Dakota may have opened the door a bit for supporters among the state's two Sioux tribes for the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux mascot and nickname, according to The Forum, a newspaper in Fargo.

After a state Supreme Court ruling on April 8, the State Board of Higher Education gave the university the go-ahead to begin retiring the controversial emblems. But under a legal agreement with the NCAA, the university has until November 30 to win both tribes' endorsement of the symbols. One of the tribes has voted favorably on the issue, but the other has not scheduled a vote.

In a letter to the chancellor of the state university system, Governor Hoeven, a Republican, asked that, should the other tribe hold a vote before the deadline, university leaders consider its wishes.

Administrators at Columbus State University, in Georgia, have postponed changes in tenure and promotion rules as the faculty prepares to vote on a no-confidence motion in the institution's leadership, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. The new standards will not apply until next year, the university's president, Timothy S. Mescon, announced late last week. The provost, Inessa Levi, characterized the step as a response rather than a "concession" to faculty concerns. Professors who were denied tenure under the new standards this year will be allowed to resubmit their requests for new reviews, she said. The no-confidence vote will go ahead on Tuesday and Wednesday.