MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia University’s Faculty Senate voted Monday to form an academic records management committee as a private consulting team prepares to review hundreds of degrees that were awarded despite apparent credit-hour deficiencies or other discrepancies.

The committee, which will stand for two years, will offer the consultant its expertise, meet with a soon to be hired registrar about how all records will be converted to a centralized computer system and help set new rules on such things as how long academic records must be retained.

A recent report by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers found 288 questionable undergraduate and master’s degrees were issued between 1997 and 2008. Of those, 27 were executive master’s of business administration degrees — the same kind retroactively awarded to Gov. Joe Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, in October 2007.

The ensuing scandal over the addition of courses and grades to Bresch’s transcript ultimately led to the resignation of former President Mike Garrison and the demotions of several others. It also prompted the AACRAO review.

Bresch last week sent a letter to the Board of Governors, asking it to explain how her case was different from the other 27 and announcing her intention to “revisit my options.”

The letter was sent to the school’s chief academic officer without comment, and on Monday, Interim Provost E. Jane Martin only briefly referred to it.

“I will gave that letter and other information the due diligence that any student query about academic records should be accorded,” she said. “And, as with other academic records, this will be done in confidence.”

While the Board of Governors revoked Bresch’s degree last year, the university has said the other 27 will stand. The 261 undergraduate degrees, however, will be thoroughly reviewed.

The administration believes some students may have completed all their required hours, but those hours were not accurately recorded. Martin said she is confident when those cases are examined, the number of deficient degrees will drop.

AACRAO’s report faulted the university for too often relying on paper-based systems in individual schools, where records can be incomplete and accountability for changing them nonexistent. Rather, it said, all schools should consider WVU’s central database, called Banner, the official academic record.

AACRAO also cited the lack of a uniform policy for how long faculty should retain grades and student work, how grades can be modified, and how to hold people accountable for entering grades into Banner. While teaching assistants and administrative staff can enter grades using a faculty member’s ID and password, AACRAO said that common practice makes it impossible to tell who entered the grade.

Martin, meanwhile, asked the senate’s Curriculum Committee to develop a standard, university-wide approach for assigning and recording credit for experiential learning.

Bresch insists she used work experience to substitute 12 hours of classroom work in her final semester, with the blessing of former eMBA program director Paul Speaker. He has denied the two had such an agreement.

Bresch is an executive with Pennsylvania-based Mylan Inc., and her boss, Mylan chairman Milan Puskar, is a longtime Manchin benefactor who also donated $20 million to WVU.

 

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