A newly renovated Muslim-student center at Brandeis University was vandalized last week, The Boston Globe reported. The president of the Muslim Student Association entered the Usdan Student Center to find lamps overturned, appliances unplugged, and a copy of the Koran missing. Dennis Nealon, Brandeis's spokesman, told the Globe, "We do not believe it is a hate crime, but that assessment will be made during the investigation."

The University of Alabama at Huntsville confirmed on Wednesday that it had fired Amy Bishop, the biology professor who is accused of killing three co-workers and injuring three others in a departmental meeting last month, The Decatur Daily reported. Previously, the university had said Ms. Bishop was suspended without pay. Ms. Bishop, who is in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing on charges of capital murder and attempted murder, received the termination letter on February 26. Her firing was made retroactive to February 12, the day of the shooting.

Citing Iranian newspapers, the Associated Press reported on Thursday that an appeals court in Iran had handed down a six-year prison sentence to a professor and journalist who is suspected of being involved in post-election turmoil there. Saeed Leilaz, an economics professor at Shahid Beheshti University, was convicted of "insulting the country's supreme leader, violating public order, and participating in a plan to disturb the country's security," his lawyer said.

The General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church fired nearly half of the members of the Board of Trustees at Erskine College on Wednesday and replaced them with interim trustees, according to The Index-Journal, a South Carolina newspaper. The church had investigated the college after students complained that professors were questioning their religious faith. Sixteen members of the board were left in place. A restructured board will take office in June, and the college will revise its bylaws. Randall T. Ruble, who is to retire as the college's president in June, said in a statement that the change was strictly a governance shift. "No changes in administration, faculty, or staff are being made," he said. But William Crenshaw, an English professor, expressed doubt. "It looks like they're trying to take over the college and imprint the college with their own kind of narrow...

Hundreds of students walked out of a teach-in on race Wednesday at the University of California at San Diego, where two recent incidents have fueled racial tensions, the Los Angeles Times reports. The protesters, who say they don't believe administrators will take significant steps to improve race relations on the campus, held their own peaceful rally across the street. The teach-in was in response to an off-campus party that mocked Black History Month and a racial slur by a campus satire group on a student television show.

Students at Pennsylvania State University will raise their glasses on Saturday for "State Patty's Day," a drinking holiday that has civic leaders and some educators in State College, Pa., bracing for trouble and urging moderation, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Students started the festival in 2007 because they would be away on spring break on St. Patrick's Day and they wanted to be able to party together. Last year's celebration resulted in numerous alcohol-related arrests and emergency-room visits, and social networking has increased the event's popularity.

George Washington University accidentally notified about 200 rejected applicants via e-mail last week that they had been accepted into the Class of 2014, The Washington Post reports. Several hours later, embarrassed officials sent a follow-up message notifying the early-decision applicants that there had been a glitch. The mistake was first reported in the GW Hatchet, the student newspaper.

Facing protests, police officials in Hanover, N.H., say they will delay a plan to send undercover officers into parties at Dartmouth College in an effort to curb underage drinking, the Union Leader reports. The plan was criticized by Dartmouth students, faculty members, alumni, and administrators. "The ball is thrown back to their court to orchestrate in some meaningful way some changes," said Nicholas Giaccone, Hanover's police chief. "This needs to start being evident in a fairly short time frame. We're not going to wait very long."

Despite an estimated 16-percent enrollment increase since last spring, the Louisiana Community and Technical College System has decided to cut its budget and lay off nearly 100 employees. The Advocate, a local newspaper, reports that the system slashed its budget by $8.2-million, or 4.5 percent of its state support. Last June the system cut its budget by $15.6-million.

Claremont Graduate University has named two academics as the winners of its Kingsley and Kate Tufts poetry awards. The $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, which honors work by a midcareer poet, goes to D.A. Powell, who teaches at the University of San Francisco. His most recent book is Chronic (Graywolf Press). The $10,000 Kate Tufts Poetry Award goes to Beth Bachmann for her first book of poetry, Temper (University of Pittsburgh Press). Ms. Bachmann teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University.