The University of Montana system’s Board of Regents said on Thursday that it had ordered an investigation into the university’s handling of 11 sexual-assault complaints, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported. As part of the investigation, two lawyers in the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education—the board’s administrative arm—will review e-mail messages in which five university officials discussed the assault charges. Those officials include James P. Foley, the university’s executive vice president, who asked in one message whether a female student could be found to have violated the university’s code of conduct for publicly discussing allegations that she was raped. Mr. Foley’s inquiry, first reported last weekend by The Missoulian, ignited new criticism of the university, which is already under investigation for “a gap in reporting sexual assaults.”

President Obama has chosen a George Mason University professor to lead the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Associated Press reports. If confirmed by the Senate, Allison M. Macfarlane, an associate professor of environmental science and policy, would succeed Gregory B. Jaczko, the commission’s chairman, who this week announced his resignation. Ms. Macfarlane wrote a 2006 book that raised questions about a proposed nuclear-waste dump at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, and she once served on a presidential commission that studied new ways to manage nuclear waste.

Charles B. Reed, who has served as chancellor of the California State University system for 14 years, will retire, the institution announced today. Mr. Reed said he would remain in the chancellor’s office until a successor was hired. “I am now looking forward to retirement as a chance to spend more time with my wife, children, and five grandsons; and to pursue more of the higher-education-related projects that are my passion,” Mr. Reed wrote in a statement to university employees.

The Chronicle’s Sara Hebel will have an in-depth report shortly.

The University of Missouri Press will close its doors after more than five decades in operation, The Columbia Daily Tribune reports. Timothy M. Wolfe, president of the University of Missouri system, announced the closure on Thursday. The press, which has published about 2,000 books since it opened, in 1958, will begin phasing out operations in July. In 2009 the press cut nearly half its staff, but it was still unable to operate without a deficit. Ten employees will be affected by the closure.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees questioned on Thursday how academic fraud in the university’s department of African and Afro-American studies was allowed to unfold, reports The News & Observer, a newspaper in Raleigh. Wade H. Hargrove, the board’s chairman, said the findings of a recent internal investigation “raise serious questions of unprofessional and unethical conduct.” That report, released this month, covered 2007 to 2011 and revealed 54 classes in the department with almost no evidence of instruction. Several deans told the board about new steps put in place to prevent future fraud, such as limiting the number of independent-study students a faculty member could oversee to two at a time. The state’s bureau of investigation is examining the matter to find out if any criminal violations occurred.

A greater proportion of Asian-Americans hold college degrees than do members of any other ethnic group in the United States, according to an American Community Survey report released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. About half of all people over the age of 25 who identified themselves as Asian had attained at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the report. The rate for the total U.S. population was 28 percent. The report is part of a larger release of American Community Survey data on hundreds of racial, tribal, and ancestry groups. Other census data released this year has shown strong gains in degree attainment by minority groups in the last 10 years.

Occupation: “prisoner.” Awards: “eight life sentences.” The Harvard Alumni Association was apologizing on Wednesday evening for publishing those and other details in an update from Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, in a directory for alumni attending their 50th class reunion this week. Mr. Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured 23 in a series of mail bombs that terrorized academics and others over 20 years, is a 1962 graduate of Harvard. According to the Associated Press, he and other members of the class were invited to submit updates for the class report. A Harvard spokesman said the update had been submitted by Mr. Kaczynski but could not say how the university had confirmed that.

Nearly all employees of Lon Morris College, a two-year liberal-arts institution in Jacksonville, Tex., received furlough notices on Wednesday and its president resigned as part of a reorganization effort, the Jacksonville Daily Progress reported. A member of its governing board says the college intends to reopen in the fall. The college, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, was among 180 that the Department of Education flagged as failing its financial-responsibility test last year.

The first phase of a plan to convert a branch of the University of South Florida into a campus for a new university is expected to cost $14-million more than its $99-million budget, the Associated Press reports. A Florida Board of Governors committee met on Wednesday to begin work on an expedited plan to create a campus for Florida’s 12th public university, which will be called Florida Polytechnic University. Only 10 people have applied for 11 positions on the new university’s Board of Trustees. The full Board of Governors is expected to take up the committee’s recommendations next week.

The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and the State Higher Education Executive Officers have organized a commission that will explore the regulation of postsecondary distance education. The commission will craft recommendations on the challenges that colleges face when they offer programs in multiple states. The group includes the Clinton administration’s education secretary, Richard W. Riley, as well as the lieutenant governor of Colorado and a former governor of Wyoming. Its first session will be in June.