C. Peter Magrath, fresh off a stint as interim president of West Virginia University, where he picked up the pieces after the controversial presidency of Michael S. Garrison, is on to another rescue mission. The State University of New York's chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, today named Mr. Magrath as the interim president of the system's Binghamton campus, whose president, Lois B. DeFleur, resigned in January after a series of controversies. Mr. Magrath, who served as Binghamton's president from 1972 to 1974, will take office on July 1.

Ten academic groups, working together as the Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations, today issued a statement condemning Arizona's recently enacted law to crack down on illegal immigrants. The groups signing the statement are the American Studies Association, the Chicano/Latino Faculty and Staff Association (ASU),  the Justice Studies Association, Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, the National Association for Chicano and Chicana Studies, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Peace and Justice Studies Association, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and Sociologists Without Borders. The statement follows a new lawsuit and a sit-in on Monday, both protesting the new law.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, a quarterly publication that for 17 years has chronicled the African-American experience at American colleges and universities, has announced that its spring issue, just out to readers, will be its last in print. In an article that is part of a wealth of tributes to the late Theodore L. Cross, who founded the journal, its managing editor, Robert Bruce Slater, writes that "the publication would just not be the same without the contributions of Ted Cross." Mr. Cross, who died on February 28 at age 86, was a civil-rights activist, astute businessman, provocative editor, and noted bird photographer, among many other things. Mr. Slater writes that the journal's staff plans to continue publishing its weekly e-mail bulletin and its Web site.

Dartmouth College announced today an anonymous $35-million gift that will enable it to create a Center for Health Care Delivery Science, which the college described as a new field of study bringing together expertise from Dartmouth's business, engineering, and medical schools. The college's president, Jim Yong Kim, a physician and former Harvard professor with broad experience in global health issues, said the new field would help improve the nation's health-care system in ways that go beyond the overhaul that President Obama and Congress enacted this year. The center will focus on five priorities: research, education, collaboration, implementation, and advocacy.

The case of a 21-year-old illegal immigrant who has nearly finished her undergraduate degree at Kennesaw State University has put the Georgia institution at the center of the debate over whether local officials—in this case, a public college's admissions office—should be responsible for helping to enforce the nation's immigration laws. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported today that Georgia's public colleges do not ask applicants to prove their citizenship or their legal immigration status, and while the colleges take steps to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving benefits—like paying cheaper in-state tuition rates—that policy took effect only after the 21-year-old student, Jessica Colotl, was admitted. Ms. Colotl was arrested in March for a driving infraction that led local authorities to determine she was in the country illegally, having been brought to the United States as a ...

The University of Virginia may yet be willing to fight the state's attorney general over his demand that it produce a host of e-mail and other documentation related to a climate scientist, Michael E. Mann, who taught at UVa until 2005 and is now at Pennsylvania State University, and whose research has provided evidence for the theory of man-made global warming. According to The Washington Post, UVa has hired a major law firm, Hogan Lovells, to help evaluate the university's options in responding to the subpoena from Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, a Republican who is an outspoken global-warming skeptic and who claims that Mr. Mann may have committed fraud in landing research grants while at UVa. The American Association of University Professors and the American Civil Liberties Union have urged the university to stand up to Mr. Cuccinelli's effort to "intimidate faculty members and discourage them...

Colleges compete avidly to land commencement speakers, and no one is more sought-after than the president of the United States. The president's time is limited, however, and President Obama, like most of his predecessors, is speaking this spring on just three college campuses. This weekend, though, as the commencement season reaches its crescendo, Mr. Obama has addressed a speech to all members of the Class of 2010. In a short essay appearing in Parade magazine, he urges them to ignore the "voices of cynicism and pessimism" and to "try harder and dig deeper" in a land that, despite the recession, is full of "infinite possibilities waiting to be seized."

The Ford Motor Company plans to restore tuition benefits for its factory workers as the automaker's fortunes improve. According to the Associated Press, the United Auto Workers union, which had agreed to give up the tuition benefit as part of concessions to help the company deal with tough times, filed a complaint after Ford restored the tuition payments for its white-collar employees, but not its factory workers. The company's move could have a direct effect on universities and community colleges in Michigan.

ACT, the testing organization based in Iowa City, has a new chief executive. He is Jon Whitmore, currently president of San Jose State University. Mr. Whitmore will succeed Richard Ferguson, who is retiring after 22 years at the helm, on September 1. Mr. Whitmore was previously president of Texas Tech University and provost of the University of Iowa.

The secretary of the Army, John McHugh, has told the State University of New York at Oswego that he will not attend its commencement, where he had been scheduled to receive an honorary degree on Saturday. According to The Post-Standard, a newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., Mr. McHugh said his presence "might well have a disrupting effect" on a day that should honor students, their families, and guests. Protesters had announced plans to speak out against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy covering gay men and lesbians in uniform. Other protesters said they would assail Mr. McHugh over his record as a former U.S. congressman representing the area.