MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- West Virginia University Provost Gerald Lang has resigned after being criticized over his handling of a master's degree that was improperly awarded to the governor's daughter.

In a memo sent Sunday to the deans who report to him, Lang said a report on the affair convinced him to step down after 32 years of involvement with WVU.

"I am very sorry that my one action in ratifying a dean's decision in a single situation has had a negative impact on the institution,'' Lang wrote. "I love this place and would never intentionally take an action that would reflect negatively upon it.''

The memo will be distributed campus-wide on Monday, according to WVU spokeswoman Amy Neil. The university will have no comment until then, she said.

In the memo, Lang said his resignation will become effective on June 30.

"I hope this decision will begin the healing process and focus attention onto the future,'' he said.

Last week, a five-member panel led by two WVU faculty members issued a report saying high-ranking academic officers and administration officials showed "seriously flawed'' judgment last fall in revising the academic records of Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, who is Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter. The result was to award her an executive master's of business administration degree she had not earned.

Those administrators lacked documentation to prove her claims that she'd finished her final semester with work experience credits, relying too heavily on verbal assertions and caving to political pressure -- whether real or perceived, the panel said.

The harshest words fell on Lang, the school's chief academic officer, and R. Stephen Sears, dean of the College of Business and Economics, who the report said "should have treated Ms. Bresch like they would or should have treated any other student.''

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -- West Virginia University Provost Gerald Lang has resigned after being criticized over his handling of a master's degree that was improperly awarded to the governor's daughter.

In a memo sent Sunday to the deans who report to him, Lang said a report on the affair convinced him to step down after 32 years of involvement with WVU.

"I am very sorry that my one action in ratifying a dean's decision in a single situation has had a negative impact on the institution,'' Lang wrote. "I love this place and would never intentionally take an action that would reflect negatively upon it.''

The memo will be distributed campus-wide on Monday, according to WVU spokeswoman Amy Neil. The university will have no comment until then, she said.

In the memo, Lang said his resignation will become effective on June 30.

"I hope this decision will begin the healing process and focus attention onto the future,'' he said.

Last week, a five-member panel led by two WVU faculty members issued a report saying high-ranking academic officers and administration officials showed "seriously flawed'' judgment last fall in revising the academic records of Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, who is Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter. The result was to award her an executive master's of business administration degree she had not earned.

Those administrators lacked documentation to prove her claims that she'd finished her final semester with work experience credits, relying too heavily on verbal assertions and caving to political pressure -- whether real or perceived, the panel said.

The harshest words fell on Lang, the school's chief academic officer, and R. Stephen Sears, dean of the College of Business and Economics, who the report said "should have treated Ms. Bresch like they would or should have treated any other student.''

In the days following the report's release, calls on top officials to resign came from within the university and from around the state. The Charleston Gazette, the state's largest newspaper, said resignations were necessary, and some members of the WVU faculty said Lang, Sears and WVU President Mike Garrison should resign.

Math department Chairman Sherman Riemenschneider told The Dominion-Post Friday he planned to make a motion at the May 12 Faculty Senate meeting calling for the censure of Garrison and Lang, a motion that would include a vote of no confidence in the men.

A message left for Riemenschneider was not immediately returned Sunday.

Lang has been provost for 13 years. Before that, he spent nine years as Dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and was an assistant dean and faculty member prior to that appointment.

"In that time, I've tried to be a good steward of the university, always keeping the betterment of the institution as my primary goal,'' he wrote in the memo.

Lang's memo spelled out what he said were some of his proudest achievements, including improvements to the campus infrastructure and increase in overall faculty salaries since 2005.

In a letter circulated this week calling on Lang, Garrison and Sears to resign, physics professor Boyd Edwards said a change in leadership was necessary for the health of WVU.

"The damage caused is simply too great,'' Boyd's letter reads. "Under the surface, wounds would remain unhealed. Even after the media attention fades, people inside and outside the university would remember that WVU lacks the courage to select new leadership when needed. Confidence in the leadership may never fully return. Private donations and federal funding may flag. The teaching, research and service missions of the university would suffer.''