Quick Takes

The board of Milwaukee Area Community College on Thursday night fired Darnell Cole as president, two weeks after he was arrested for drunk driving, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Some students and community groups organized a press conference and attended the board meeting to back Cole, who they said has done a good job. Some said he was being treated unfairly for being African-American. Other students, however, disagree. The MATC Times, the student newspaper, ran an editorial calling for his ouster. The editorial concluded this way: "Dr. Cole is an educated man and a school president; what was he doing driving drunk? What kind of message does that send to students? The halls of MATC are filled with posters and pamphlets warning of the dangers of drunk driving and how to avoid it. And yet our president seems never to have stopped and read one.... Drunk driving is a serious offense because it can so easily end in death, and as such, a simple apology is far from adequate as a response. If the MATC Board does not act to remove Dr. Cole, ... Darnell Cole should resign from MATC."

Hundreds of people rallied outside a New York University building early Friday morning, at times clashing with police officers, to back a student group barricaded inside, The New York Times reported. The student group is demanding a variety of changes in policy, including the release of more information about the university budget and endowment, the return of a union for graduate students, limits on tuition increases, scholarships for Palestinian students and amnesty for those involved in the protest. NYU and the protesting students both accused the other side of making negotiations impossible. Those protesting are providing updates online at Take Back NYU while a parody Web site -- Fake Back NYU -- has deconstructed the various demands.

The rank and file of college sports administration has significant racial and gender diversity, but the upper ranks of leaders -- including college presidents, athletics directors and conference commissioners -- are overwhelmingly white and male, according to an annual survey of the status of women and members of minority groups in intercollegiate athletics. The survey, from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida's College of Business Administration, found that all Division I conference commissioners, 92.5 percent of college presidents at colleges that play big-time football, and more than 90 percent of athletics directors throughout the National Collegiate Athletic Association were white in 2008, and that women held steady or declined in most categories. The main exception to the trend was at NCAA headquarters, where the institute awarded a grade of A for both gender and racial diversity.

Curious how much money might be flowing to your state for education programs under the economic stimulus legislation signed by President Obama this week? The U.S. Education Department has published preliminary tables showing how the tens of billions of dollars in new funds is likely to be allocated to the states, with separate tables on Pell Grants, federal work study, and the biggest-ticket item of all, the state stabilization fund designed to stave off state budget cuts.

Northeastern University has announced "Double Husky" scholarships as a way to help new graduates in a tough economy. New graduates and recent alumni will receive a discount of 25 percent on more than 100 master's degree and certificate programs. The discounts can be applied not only to programs on the Boston campus, but to programs in China and Greece.

Vietnamese Americans protested this week at Cypress College, in California, over a photograph that they call "propaganda." The Orange County Register reported that the objections are to a photograph showing a young Vietnamese woman wearing a shirt with the communist Vietnamese flag, next to a bust of Ho Chi Minh. College officials pledged to hold a forum for the protesters to express their views, but declined to remove the photograph from an exhibit.

Ryan Allen, a senior at George Mason University who performs as a drag queen at Washington-area clubs, has been elected homecoming queen, The Washington Post reported. While many at the university see the election as a symbol of the university's diversity and tolerance, some students worried that the election would hurt the university's image.