Andrew Knicely, chairman of Fairmont State University's Board of Governors, resigned Friday for having verbally harangued the university's head football coach after a game last month, The Charleston Gazette reports. Mr. Knicely had apologized for the incident, in which he yelled at the coach over his son's lack of playing time in the game.

David Pelham, president of Cuesta College since March 2008, resigned abruptly on Monday. In an e-mail message to people on the California campus, Mr. Pelham criticized his own leadership of the financially challenged community college, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune. He will step down in December to take a post running an unspecified college in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The University of Central Missouri's governing board has opted not to extend the contract of Aaron M. Podolefsky, the university's president, according to news reports. The board gave no reason for the decision. Mr. Podolefsky, who was recently the subject of a supportive petition from faculty members, will step down on June 30, 2010.

A Florida judge yesterday dismissed the bulk of the criminal charges filed against James R. Richburg, a former president of Northwest Florida State College, who had been indicted in a corruption case involving a state lawmaker and a construction project on the campus, according to the Northwest Florida Daily News.

Faculty members at three campuses of the Alamo Community College District on Monday voted no confidence in the district's chancellor, Bruce H. Leslie, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Mr. Leslie says he plans to stay, and appears to have the support of the district's governing board.

The governing board of the University of Montevallo, in Alabama, last week voted to grant a four-month sabbatical to the president, Philip C. Williams, who had threatened to resign unless he received the support of every trustee, according to the Shelby County Reporter. The board's chairman said he hoped Mr. Williams would return to his post next year.

Richard Herman, the embattled chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, delivered a remorseful apology to the university's Faculty Senate today over his role in the "clout" scandal, according to The News-Gazette, a local newspaper. Faculty members, who reportedly applauded after Mr. Herman's speech, postponed their scheduled vote on a resolution calling for his resignation and that of B. Joseph White, the university system's president.

Payroll data from the 16-campus University of North Carolina System reveal that administrative positions have increased by 28 percent over five years, outpacing growth in faculty and other teaching jobs (24 percent) and student enrollment (14 percent), according to a report in Raleigh's News and Observer. University officials acknowledged the disproportionate job growth, and said they have been working to trim the ranks of senior and mid-level administrators.

Thomas F. George, chancellor of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and his wife, Barbara Harbach, a professor of music, have announced a $2-million gift to the university's College of Fine Arts, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Ms. Harbach is an accomplished composer, concert pianist, and harpsichordist; Mr. George, a chemist, is a jazz pianist.

In an op-ed article published in The Boston Globe, Northeastern University's president, Joseph E. Aoun, said higher education was not ready to meet President Obama's challenge without diversifying. Mr. Aoun, who this week also joined Michael M. Crow, Arizona State University's president, in a related discussion on NPR's On Point, said for-profit, "no frills," and online college options would expand in the future.