The topic of resignations will no doubt arise during Monday's meeting of the executive committee of the West Virginia University Faculty Senate.

That's according to Arthur Jacknowitz, a WVU professor and leader in the faculty senate.

Some committee members may ask for the resignation of administrators involved in granting an undeserved master's degree to Heather Bresch, Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter.

Jacknowitz said the actions of the university's administration have given the school a "black eye" and have "frustrated" and "embarrassed" faculty and staff.

However, Jacknowitz also said faculty and staff need time to process the report before issuing demands for disciplinary action.

"People have to digest and figure out what way to go," he said. "What I can tell you is people make mistakes. Whether those mistakes are fatal to those people is yet to be determined."

On Wednesday, a five-member panel appointed by WVU Provost Gerald Lang and the faculty senate issued a report stating the decision of high-ranking academic officers and administration officials to retroactively award Bresch a master's degree last year was "seriously flawed and reflected poor judgment."

The panel concluded administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claim that she substituted work experience for her final 10 credit hours in 1998. It also maintains administrators relied too heavily on unconfirmed verbal assertions and caved to political pressure.

The report placed much of the blame on Lang and business school dean Steve Sears, who the report said had no reliable academic reason to give Bresch the degree.

Lang and Sears have defended their actions as "a judgment call," made with the limited available records.

But the panel said that administrators were "driven primarily and inappropriately by concerns about public relations and by Ms. Bresch's high profile. She was, in fact, treated in an unusual and unique manner."

Bresch's employer, Mylan Inc., is based in Canonsburg, Pa., and has a lab in Morgantown. The company's chairman, Milan Puskar, is a benefactor of Bresch's father and donated $20 million to WVU in 2003 for its athletic department and scholarships. The school's football stadium is named after him.

Questions about her degree first arose after Bresch was promoted to chief operating officer at Mylan in October. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called WVU to confirm that Bresch had a master's degree, and was told that she did not.

WVU retroactively awarded Bresch the degree in October.

The report did not specifically find fault with Garrison, who is a family friend and former business associate of Bresch.

The topic of resignations will no doubt arise during Monday's meeting of the executive committee of the West Virginia University Faculty Senate.

That's according to Arthur Jacknowitz, a WVU professor and leader in the faculty senate.

Some committee members may ask for the resignation of administrators involved in granting an undeserved master's degree to Heather Bresch, Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter.

Jacknowitz said the actions of the university's administration have given the school a "black eye" and have "frustrated" and "embarrassed" faculty and staff.

However, Jacknowitz also said faculty and staff need time to process the report before issuing demands for disciplinary action.

"People have to digest and figure out what way to go," he said. "What I can tell you is people make mistakes. Whether those mistakes are fatal to those people is yet to be determined."

On Wednesday, a five-member panel appointed by WVU Provost Gerald Lang and the faculty senate issued a report stating the decision of high-ranking academic officers and administration officials to retroactively award Bresch a master's degree last year was "seriously flawed and reflected poor judgment."

The panel concluded administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claim that she substituted work experience for her final 10 credit hours in 1998. It also maintains administrators relied too heavily on unconfirmed verbal assertions and caved to political pressure.

The report placed much of the blame on Lang and business school dean Steve Sears, who the report said had no reliable academic reason to give Bresch the degree.

Lang and Sears have defended their actions as "a judgment call," made with the limited available records.

But the panel said that administrators were "driven primarily and inappropriately by concerns about public relations and by Ms. Bresch's high profile. She was, in fact, treated in an unusual and unique manner."

Bresch's employer, Mylan Inc., is based in Canonsburg, Pa., and has a lab in Morgantown. The company's chairman, Milan Puskar, is a benefactor of Bresch's father and donated $20 million to WVU in 2003 for its athletic department and scholarships. The school's football stadium is named after him.

Questions about her degree first arose after Bresch was promoted to chief operating officer at Mylan in October. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called WVU to confirm that Bresch had a master's degree, and was told that she did not.

WVU retroactively awarded Bresch the degree in October.

The report did not specifically find fault with Garrison, who is a family friend and former business associate of Bresch.

On Wednesday, the WVU Board of Governors demanded Garrison develop a plan by its June meeting to address any shortcomings brought up in the report.

Garrison wrote on his blog Thursday that he will take full responsibly for implementing changes to ensure "this never happens again."

"My degrees from WVU are the accomplishments I worked hardest to obtain, and the credentials I value over all others. I know that their value is the most precious thing this University has to offer," Garrison wrote. "I want to assure the worldwide WVU community and West Virginia citizens that we will follow all of the panel's recommendations."

He said recommendations from the panel and the BOG include: developing standard operating procedures for making decisions about academic concerns; strengthening academic record management policies; reviewing procedures for making and tracking changes to grades and transcripts; and training all employees who deal with academic records in Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act regulations.

Faculty and staff are upset, and they are determined to make sure the university puts measures into place to ensure something like this never happens again, Jacknowitz said.

"But I am heartened by the Board of Governors' immediate response and the president's willingness to follow through," he said.

In its report, the panel stops short of demanding disciplinary action.

"Mistake was compounded by mistake,'' their report says. "An unnecessary rush to judgment, spurred in some measure by an understandable desire to protect a valued alumna and to respond to media pressure, produced a flawed and erroneous result. It didn't have to happen this way.''

WVU administrators should have been "more deliberate, more discerning and more detached,'' the panel said. "They should have had the courage to accept the fact that they might have to reach a conclusion on the evidence that they did not like or want.''

The report does not signal widespread problems in either record keeping or the granting of academic credits in the College of Business and Economics. But several students told The Associated Press that doesn't minimize their embarrassment.

"It makes the school look like a joke,'' said Michael Jude, a 21-year-old junior from Beckley who was poring over a biology text.

"I know a lot of students come here just because they're looking for a good time, and they think that this is just going to be a big party. But some of us, we work hard, we go to class, we study hard and we have to work for our credit,'' he said. "I just don't think it's fair that somebody would just be awarded credit arbitrarily for nothing.

"I'm not sure what an appropriate response would be,'' he said, "but no response would be very bad for the school and for all the students.''

To contact staff writer Veronica Nett, use e-mail or call 348-5113.