Quote:A report presented to West Virginia University’s board Friday, by embattled President Mike Garrison, says that there are questions about 70 M.B.A. degrees awarded in the same executive M.B.A. program in which the governor’s daughter received a degree she didn’t earn. While the latest report would suggest that the politically connected degree recipient didn’t receive such special treatment after all, as has been widely believed at the university, there are few signs that the latest news is ending the controversy. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the panel that investigated the inappropriate degree did not find the widespread problems the president found. Mountaineers for Integrity and Responsibility has turned over a petition with 1,240 names calling for Garrison’s ouster. But the university board on Friday, while stating that it continues its review of the scandal, issued a statement saying that it found “no evidence” that Garrison was involved in awarding the degree that set off the furor.

Quote:Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - Page updated at 02:05 AM

Top party school: West Virginia
By VICKI SMITH
The Associated Press

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — To the disappointment of school administrators — and the pride of some students — West Virginia University is No. 1 on The Princeton's Review's annual list of the top party schools.

The school has made the list seven times in the past 15 years, despite efforts to curb underage drinking and rowdy behavior.

But not since 1997 have the Mountaineers taken the top spot. Last year, WVU was No. 3, bested by the University of Texas at Austin and Penn State, both of which remain in the top 10 this year.

Senior Katie O'Hara, 22, said WVU is No. 1 because "no matter what kind of party you want it's here — bars, fraternities, house parties. ... If you want to take shots all night, there's a bar; no matter what you want to do, it's there."

Still, O'Hara said her friends "know how to manage their time. They know when to party and when not to," which wouldn't explain the school's No. 1 ranking in the category of Their Students (Almost) Never Study.

The rankings are contained in the 2008 edition of "The Best 366 Colleges," which is going on sale today and is based on a survey of 120,000 students at those schools.

Incoming WVU President Mike Garrison focused on the positive rather than the rankings, saying the students he met over the weekend and on the first day of classes Monday are more concerned with their futures "and with the great year we have ahead" than with partying.

"I'm focused on the way this university changes people's lives, the research that we do and the service we provide to the state of West Virginia," Garrison said.

Don Dresden Wrote:Not a single negative word from Gus or any of the other hypocrites.  

Quote:Virginia Commonwealth University is investigating whether it awarded a bachelor’s degree to Rodney Monroe, Richmond’s chief of police, even though he lacked enough credits. The university issued a statement last month indicating that it was investigating allegations that a degree had been awarded inappropriately, but that statement did not identify the recipient. Monroe is about to take over as police chief in Charlotte, N.C. and anonymous notes sent to the Charlotte and Richmond media — and to Virginia Commonwealth’s accreditor — prompted reports about the inquiry in The Charlotte Observer and The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Monroe has denied any wrongdoing and many officials in both areas are backing him, and denouncing the anonymous tipster. The anonymous tip — from someone who identified himself to the newspapers as Harry Potter — said that Monroe did not meet the requirement that he earn at least 30 credits at the university, and that he earned only 6. The Observer article noted that in a feature article about Monroe receiving the degree last year, the Richmond paper said that he took only two courses at the university.

Don Dresden Wrote:Virginia joins the party, with SACS-accredited VCU awarding the Richmond police chief a degree on only 6 of 30 required units:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/04/qt

Quote:Virginia Commonwealth University on Friday announced that an investigation had found that a bachelor’s degree had been awarded to the former police chief of Richmond even though he was not close to meeting a key degree requirement. However, the university announced at the same time that because the former police chief did not seek special treatment, he wasn’t responsible for the degree being awarded — and the degree will stand as legitimate.

...Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director for external relations of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said via e-mail that the university’s statement “raises more questions than it answers. The strangeness of the university’s decision not to rescind an improperly awarded (and technically unearned) degree is only outdone by the meekness of the rationale offered in its support.”

Quote:...The university also confirmed yesterday that Michael D. Pratt, another vocal critic of the investigation into Monroe's degree, had resigned as interim director of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and as director of the VCU Center for Public Policy. He will remain as a professor of economics.

Pratt said yesterday he had resigned for personal reasons. He would not discuss the letter that he wrote with Deborah M. Brock, associate director of operations at the Wilder School, to the university's president, provost and faculty senate president earlier this year.

In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, they denounced the investigation as threatening and unethical, and they called for a new investigation "by an organization outside of VCU that can be trusted by the faculty, staff, and administration."

Pratt and Dan Ream, the faculty senate president, referred questions to provost Stephen Gottfredson, who did not return phone calls yesterday.

The investigation was conducted by the VCU Department of Assurance Services at the direction of the Board of Visitors' Academic and Health Affairs Policy Committee.

[Resigning Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences Robert D.] Holsworth, in a three-page letter to internal auditor Richard O. Bunce on June 25, challenged the investigation's tactics and its objectivity. Holsworth's letter also was obtained by The Times-Dispatch.

He said investigators had told one faculty member, Public Safety Institute Director Robyn Lacks, that her chances of receiving job tenure this year would depend on her cooperation with the board's investigation.

"In my 30 years as a faculty member and administrator, I have never heard of an individual investigator from an audit department becoming involved in a discussion about an upcoming tenure case in what was clearly perceived as an implied threat," Holsworth wrote.

He also accused investigators of assuming that he and other VCU officials had engaged in a conspiracy, as alleged by an anonymous source within the university, because Holsworth and others generally supported helping Monroe earn his bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies.

"As far as I can tell, at no point did anyone try to cover up anything that had occurred," Holsworth wrote, citing a detailed story in The Times-Dispatch about the work Monroe had done to receive the degree.

Holsworth stood by his letter yesterday.

"I am certainly proud to stand up for . . . good people who were doing a good job for the university and who were treated unfairly in the investigation," he said.

Quote:Professors Sue to Block Misconduct Hearing at West Virginia University
Leigh Jones
The National Law Journal
December 08, 2010

Two college professors are suing West Virginia University and its former general counsel for allegedly violating their civil rights during a scandal over a degree awarded to the former governor's daughter.

In a complaint filed on Dec. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, the two professors allege that the school, its general counsel, one of its law professors and others "sabotaged" their reputations and violated due process during an academic misconduct proceeding. The proceeding stemmed from their roles in retroactively granting an executive master of business administration degree in 2007 to Heather Bresch, daughter of former Gov. Joe Manchin.

Plaintiffs Cyril Logar, still a faculty member, and Stephen Sears, who resigned from the school in 2008, want to block the school's misconduct action against them, which they said is ongoing. They also seek compensatory damages.

"Defendants knowingly and intentionally sabotaged plaintiffs' reputations," their lawsuit claims.

A spokesman for the university declined to comment, stating that school officials were aware of the lawsuit but had not seen it.

According to the complaint, school administrators in 2007 asked Logar, former associate dean of the WVU College of Business and Economics, and Sears, former dean of the same college, to investigate the degree awarded to "Student A" after questions from news reporters arose about its legitimacy. Logar and Sears claim they determined that the student had not completed all coursework for the degree but that the school decided to retroactively grant it to her anyway. They assert that they followed the advice of the general counsel in saying that she had earned the degree.

Following news coverage that called into question the school's determination, an independent panel found in 2008 that Bresch did not fulfill requirements for the degree. The school launched misconduct proceedings against the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs assert that they became the subject of an academic misconduct proceeding despite having followed the general counsel's advice. They claim that the proceeding is not fair and impartial and denies them due process.

In support of their complaint, the plaintiffs note that former WVU Provost Gerald Lang last year won a writ of prohibition motion in state court blocking the school from going forward with a misconduct action against him. The court found that the school had a conflict of interest deprived him of due process.

Among the defendants are WVU former general counsel Mary Brandt; Deputy General Counsel Beverly Kerr; Professor of Law and Technology Marjorie McDiarmid, University President James Clements and other past and current university administrators.