West Virginia University M.B.A. controversy

On October 2, 2007 Heather Bresch, the daughter of then-governor (and subsequently United States Senator) Joe Manchin of West Virginia, was promoted to chief operating officer at Mylan, a Cecil Township, Pennsylvania-based generic drug maker.[1]

On October 11, 2007 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contacted West Virginia University to confirm academic credentials claimed by Bresch, including an EMBA degree.[1] Research done by the Post-Gazette indicated that Bresch's course work ceased with 22 out of the 48-credit-hour program remaining to be completed.[1] The WVU Registrar told the newspaper that Bresch had earned an undergraduate degree, but did not finish her graduate degree. However, on October 15, 2007, a university spokeswoman announced that WVU officials had verified that Bresch had "completed all the requirements for an executive masters of business administration degree," but did not receive her diploma because she failed to pay a $50 graduation fee.[1] The WVU official attributed the misunderstanding to the business school's failure to transfer records from nearly half of Bresch's course work.[1]

On October 22, 2007, R. Stephen Sears, the Milan Puskar Dean of WVU's business school, sent a letter to WVU's admissions and records office retroactively granting Bresch an EMBA. Six classes were added to her record with letter grades, and two classes with "Incomplete" grades were given letter grades.[1]

In 2008, the University commissioned a report written by a panel of faculty members from WVU and other universities to look into the matter.[2] As covered by the Post-Gazette, the panel discovered the change in Bresch's letter grades, and the University announced in April 2008 that it would rescind Bresch's degree.[3] WVU provost Gerald Lang announced his resignation[4] and shortly thereafter College of Business & Economics Dean Stephen Sears announced his resignation as well.[5]

The report's panel found that high-ranking university administrators "cherry-picked" information and that grades were "simply pulled from thin air" to grant Bresch the degree nearly 10 years after she was supposed to graduate. The panel concluded administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claims, relied too heavily on verbal assertions and caved to political pressure. The report did not find that the university president directly interfered, but it concluded the presence of his chief of staff in the decision-making meeting created "palpable" pressure. The panel concluded (“taking the most charitable view") that Bresch did not deliberately lie in believing that she had earned the degree.[6]

On May 1, 2008, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which first reported on the controversy, published an editorial calling for WVU's President Michael Garrison's resignation.[7] On the same day, WVU's student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum held a student forum where some students called for Garrison's resignation. Garrison did not attend; he was represented by a member of the executive communications staff.[8]