Disappointing some students and angering conservatives on the campus, the faculty at Butler University has rejected a proposal to invite Chief Justice John G. Roberts to be the graduation speaker this May, The Indianapolis Star reported. But Jeanne VanTyle, a professor of pharmacy practice and president of the Faculty Senate, told the newspaper that a "no politicians" rule, not politics, was the main reason for the decision. Time was also a factor, she said: The process of conferring an honorary degree can take years. This year's speaker -- the Rev. Sharon Watkins, president of the denomination that founded Butler, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) -- was nominated four years ago, Ms. VanTyle said.

The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved a new $300-million plan to reverse Israel's brain drain and attract top-class researchers back to their homeland, Ynetnews reported. A recent survey found that the ratio of Israeli academics working in the United States to those in Israel was nearly 25 percent. The new fund, one-third of which will come from the government, will establish 30 centers of academic excellence at existing universities with attractive salary, budget, and working conditions to woo academics.

The Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state's three public universities, approved sizable increases in tuition and fees for next year, but warned the institutions that the new revenue would not solve their money problems, The Arizona Republic reported. The increases vary by institution, coming to just over 20 percent for undergraduates at the University of Arizona, nearly 19 percent for new students at Arizona State University, and about 16 percent for new students at Northern Arizona University. The university system had to absorb a 17-percent midyear cut in state appropriations in 2009, and has been weighing significant changes to cope.

A proposal in the Michigan State Senate would require universities that conduct embryonic-stem-cell research to report to the state each year how many such cells they have received, created, stored, and used for research, the Detroit Free Press reported. The provision was inserted into a budget bill for higher education that the full Senate has not yet considered. The Republican lawmaker who sponsored the provision, State Sen. Tom George, said it was not an attempt to thwart the intent of a 2008 ballot initiative that eased restrictions on stem-cell research. "There is an interest in knowing, Are we creating thousands of new stem cell lines, or just two?" Senator George said.

Key Democrats in the U.S. Senate are balking at a potential strategy for winning approval of student-loan legislation championed by President Obama but strongly opposed by loan companies, The Washington Post reported. The strategy would tie the measure to health-care-reform legislation in a "budget reconciliation" bill that could be approved by a simple majority without threat of filibuster. But some senators argue that that tactic could jeopardize both bills. The student-loan bill has run into political resistance in the face of lobbying by the student-lending industry and concerns about its cost. New estimates show that the bill may save less than expected, and that the programs it finances may cost more than anticipated.

The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia has authorized an audit of employees' health-insurance coverage, in hopes of saving nearly $5-million by removing ineligible dependents from the plan, the Morris News Service reported. A system official said examples of ineligible dependents include children who are no longer young enough to be covered and are not full-time students. After an amnesty and appeal period, employees who claim ineligible dependents will be dropped from the plan, and will have to reapply for coverage the following year.

Winthrop University has canceled all on-campus classes for Monday because of a fire that still smoldered under the roof of a classroom building on Sunday, 24 hours after the blaze was discovered, The Herald, a newspaper in Rock Hill, S.C., reported. The building, Owens Hall, is one of the institution's newest, having opened in 2007. While the fire was primarily concentrated beneath the roof, officials expect that much of the interior will have to be replaced because of smoke and water damage.

Student rallies to protest racially charged incidents at the University of California at San Diego spread to other campuses on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, and the San Diego campus announced that it was aggressively investigating a new provocation there: the discovery of a Ku Klux Klan-style hood on a campus statue. At rallies on the Irvine and Los Angeles campuses, students condemned recent incidents at San Diego, which have included a noose found in the library, a racist broadcast, and a party mocking Black History Month. The San Diego campus's statement said the culprits in the latest incident would be punished "to the full extent of the Student Code of Conduct and all applicable laws."

A state lawmaker in Alabama has withdrawn proposed legislation that would have banned public colleges from requiring their students to live on campus, The Huntsville Times reports. The proposal would have applied statewide but was aimed at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, which had recently announced a policy requiring freshmen and sophomores to live on the campus, beginning next fall. The university revised the policy last week to allow students who live with a parent or a legal guardian to request an exemption. The legislator, Rep. Howard Sanderford, Republican of Huntsville, said he was concerned about the added expense for local students and parents.

Football players at Texas A&M University at Commerce are the main suspects in the theft of last Wednesday's issue of The East Texan, the student newspaper, from campus racks, and their coach is pleased with their effort. "I am proud of my players for doing that," the coach, Guy Morriss, told an investigating officer, according to a police report quoted by The Battalion, the student paper at A&M's flagship in College Station. "This was the best team building exercise we have ever done," he said. The issue taken from the racks had reported the arrests of two football players on drug charges.