MORGANTOWN - The Faculty Senate at West Virginia University demanded Monday that President Mike Garrison's administration provide details on alleged irregularities in some 70 degrees awarded through its executive master's of business administration program.
Related: Investigation panel members blast link to 70 other degrees
MORGANTOWN - The Faculty Senate at West Virginia University demanded Monday that President Mike Garrison's administration provide details on alleged irregularities in some 70 degrees awarded through its executive master's of business administration program.
The measure passed 41-18 after senator Nigel Clark argued faculty leaders should be able to compare those deficiencies in credit hours against the case involving the governor's daughter.
The senate also considered removing its departing chairman, Steve Kite, as representative to a key WVU Board of Governors meeting Friday after Kite declined to say how he would vote on any motion to oust Garrison. The senate rejected the idea for fear that Gov. Joe Manchin would not seat a replacement in time to ensure faculty representation.
Garrison and the faculty, which has twice demanded his resignation, remain locked in a bitter and public standoff over the EMBA that administrators improperly awarded last fall to Manchin's daughter, Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch.
Garrison, who has refused to resign, last week offered the Board of Governors a corrective action plan he said would prevent any similar incidents from occurring. That report varied in one key respect from the conclusions of the independent panel that investigated the Bresch degree and found she had not earned it.
While the independent panel found no pervasive problems with record-keeping or the granting of academic credits in the College of Business and Economics, Garrison's own task force said it conducted a more comprehensive review and found "there is no system of checks and balances in record-keeping in the College (of Business & Economics) so as to prevent circumstances central to the case of Ms. Bresch happening again.''
Jonathan Cumming, vice president for graduate education, said his team has identified potential problems with the academic records of about 70 of WVU's 700 eMBA graduates. Many, he said, have to do with incomplete grades.
That public pronouncement enraged many faculty, some of whom spoke at the senate meeting and at an afternoon gathering on a campus plaza. English professor Lisa Weihman rejected the administration's claim as an attempt to whitewash the fabrication of courses and grades on Bresch's transcript.
"It was fraud that happened in that room,'' she said. "It was not a record-keeping mistake.''
Related: Investigation panel members blast link to 70 other degrees
MORGANTOWN - The Faculty Senate at West Virginia University demanded Monday that President Mike Garrison's administration provide details on alleged irregularities in some 70 degrees awarded through its executive master's of business administration program.
The measure passed 41-18 after senator Nigel Clark argued faculty leaders should be able to compare those deficiencies in credit hours against the case involving the governor's daughter.
The senate also considered removing its departing chairman, Steve Kite, as representative to a key WVU Board of Governors meeting Friday after Kite declined to say how he would vote on any motion to oust Garrison. The senate rejected the idea for fear that Gov. Joe Manchin would not seat a replacement in time to ensure faculty representation.
Garrison and the faculty, which has twice demanded his resignation, remain locked in a bitter and public standoff over the EMBA that administrators improperly awarded last fall to Manchin's daughter, Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch.
Garrison, who has refused to resign, last week offered the Board of Governors a corrective action plan he said would prevent any similar incidents from occurring. That report varied in one key respect from the conclusions of the independent panel that investigated the Bresch degree and found she had not earned it.
While the independent panel found no pervasive problems with record-keeping or the granting of academic credits in the College of Business and Economics, Garrison's own task force said it conducted a more comprehensive review and found "there is no system of checks and balances in record-keeping in the College (of Business & Economics) so as to prevent circumstances central to the case of Ms. Bresch happening again.''
Jonathan Cumming, vice president for graduate education, said his team has identified potential problems with the academic records of about 70 of WVU's 700 eMBA graduates. Many, he said, have to do with incomplete grades.
That public pronouncement enraged many faculty, some of whom spoke at the senate meeting and at an afternoon gathering on a campus plaza. English professor Lisa Weihman rejected the administration's claim as an attempt to whitewash the fabrication of courses and grades on Bresch's transcript.
"It was fraud that happened in that room,'' she said. "It was not a record-keeping mistake.''
Judith Sedgeman, a medical school professor, said she was shocked to hear the claim that 10 percent of the eMBA graduates now must fear for the validity of the degrees. The senate, she said, must take action on behalf of those former students.
"If indeed there are irregularities, we haven't seen what the remedies are for that. Are they going to take degrees away from people?'' she asked.
Cumming's report said Bresch only completed 36 of the required 48 hours, and other students in her class graduated even though some were as many as seven hours shy of the required credits.
In April, the independent panel said WVU administrators showed "seriously flawed'' judgment in altering a transcript and retroactively awarding Bresch a degree to protect her and themselves from media scrutiny. The panel said academic officials took Bresch's word that she had earned her degree, even though there were no records to prove it.
The panel said Bresch herself did nothing wrong; nor did it directly fault Garrison, her longtime friend. However, it did say the presence of his communications director, legal counsel and chief of staff in that meeting created "palpable pressure'' to go along with the decision.
Last week, the Board of Governors issued a statement saying it believes that Garrison did nothing to influence officials to give Bresch the degree. Board members plan to meet in Charleston on Friday to discuss Garrison's corrective action plan.
Earlier in the day, about 100 students and faculty members gathered at the Mountainlair plaza, toting signs and wearing T-shirts with phrases like "Garrison Must Go'' and the simple demand, "Resign,'' accompanied by a photo of the president on inauguration day chatting privately with Board of Governors Chairman Steve Goodwin.
Conner Sorrells, a political science major from Charleston, said it no longer matters whether Garrison interfered in the awarding of Bresch's degree.
"He's hurting our university by maintaining his status as president,'' Sorrells said.
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WVU Faculty demands more information on other eMBA degrees! WVU Medical Center report should be changed from negative to positive report, per Mr. Garrision!
The constant story line here is ......... Garrison must go!