The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division II Committee on Infractions has sanctioned the University of Missouri at St. Louis for major violations in its men's golf program. The association handed down the penalties, which include two years of probation for the university, in response to alleged sports-wagering in fantasy football and baseball leagues by the team's former head coach. The NCAA, which detailed its findings in a 13-page report, prohibits athletes and coaches from participating in such activities.

The man with a suspicious item in his luggage that resulted in a partial shutdown on Thursday night of Miami International Airport turns out to be a former Texas Tech University professor who served time in prison for mishandling samples of bubonic plague. According to The Miami Herald, Thomas C. Butler was detained at the airport after what looked like a pipe bomb was seen in his luggage and the authorities found out about his past. Mr. Butler was convicted in 2003 on charges stemming from an incident in his lab that sparked a bioterrorism scare when it appeared that 30 vials of plague bacteria had vanished. He was later sentenced to two years in jail. In Miami, however, when the suspicious item was found to be only an empty metal canister, prosecutors said they would not be filing charges against him.

Andrew M. Cuomo, New York's attorney general and the Democratic candidate for governor, has announced that he is undertaking a statewide investigation into "deceptive credit-card-marketing practices that target college students" and has sent letters to every college in New York, asking that they provide his office with information about any exclusive contracts they have with credit- and debit-card companies. Mr. Cuomo, who made a name for himself in higher education by cracking down on conflicts of interest in student lending, has shown interest in student credit cards before, sending out a series of subpoenas in 2008 asking colleges for details about their college-branded credit cards.

Board infighting has led a longtime higher-education administrator to walk away from the presidency at Quincy College before he even started the job. Philip Conroy was named in June as the next president of the public college in Massachusetts, but he withdrew from the job this week in part because the board could not agree on the terms of his contract, The Patriot Ledger reports. Mr. Conroy won a close vote for the position, but the hire was questioned by supporters of a former board chairman who was also a finalist for the job.

A shooting by a disgruntled worker that took two lives in March has led Ohio State University to make several changes in how it hires employees and how it deals with troubled ones. According to The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State announced this week that it would subject all new hires to criminal background checks, that certain workers fired during their initial probationary periods would have to cease work immediately, and that workers convicted of certain crimes must notify the university of them. In the March shooting, a custodial worker who had been told he would be dismissed in a week shot to death a supervisor, wounded another, and then killed himself. The gunman had a criminal record that did not show up in a background check, the Dispatch reported.

Lasell College plans to repay more than $191,000 to students amid allegations that the Massachusetts institution directed student-loan applicants to Citizens Bank, according to The Boston Globe. Lasell employees allegedly received "free entertainment, meals, and other gifts" in return for steering students to the lender. Martha Coakley, attorney general of Massachusetts, had accused the college of telling students that they were required to borrow from Citizens Bank, even though other lenders offered better rates.

A Binghamton University center's director is accused of falsifying a travel-expense report and faces a felony criminal charge, a local newspaper, the Press & Sun-Bulletin, reported. The official, Seshu B. Desu, is a former dean of the university's Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science and is now executive director of its Center for Autonomous Solar Power. He was not available for comment in the newspaper's account. Binghamton officials would not say whether he remained on the job, but did say that an investigation was continuing.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office recognizes that it's really hard for states to report all of the information on how educational institutions are spending their money from the stimulus package -- more than $70-billion for schools and colleges. But they should be giving more detail than they are, the GAO recommended in a report released today. "While most states cannot provide information on how each subrecipient is using its funds, providing more information ... could help the public gain a better understanding of how the funds are being used," the watchdog agency concluded.

California State University at Fresno is no longer at the center of a dispute over whether a cache of old pictures are actually long-lost works by the famed photographer Ansel Adams. The university was scheduled to be the first stop of an exhibit of the photos, which were purchased for $45 at a garage sale and, if genuine, have been valued at $200-million. But Adams's heirs and executors have disputed the authenticity of the photos and called claims to the contrary a "fraud," putting Fresno State in an awkward position. The university has now declared that the planned show is off because the event space is booked with another exhibit. And not a moment too soon: One of the art-world experts who authenticated the photos as Adams's work has recanted his opinion. According to The New York Times, Robert C. Moeller III, a former curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, now thinks at least...

Employers responding to a recent survey said they planned to hire 13.5 percent more new college graduates from the Class of 2011 than they did from the Class of 2010, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which conducted the survey in July and August and released preliminary findings today. But the survey found that only 48 percent of employers actually expected to increase their hiring; 40 percent said they expected level hiring, and 12 percent predicted a drop in hiring.