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NEWS
WVU board takes no action on Garrison
MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia University's Board of Governors announced Monday they likely won't take any action against embattled President Mike Garrison until next month.
Garrison is due to present a corrective action plan June 6 to the board, along with any other response from his administration to a master's degree scandal involving the governor's daughter.
The scandal has tarnished the school's national reputation, embarrassed students, enraged donors and prompted faculty to twice demand the president's resignation.
"The Board of Governors is paying attention, is very concerned and is very engaged in the process that now faces West Virginia University," said Chairman Stephen P. Goodwin. "We'll continue to meet and discuss, and we take our role very seriously."
Barring an unforeseen development, Goodwin said, "the plan is to continue to have discussions so when we arrive at the June 6 meeting ... the board will be fully informed and prepared to hear what the president has to say and move forward with a decision."
Goodwin would not discuss specifics of a private three-hour Board meeting on Monday, but he fielded a variety of questions about the president. When asked specifically whether the meeting was about Garrison, he responded, "It doesn't take too much imagination" to figure out the topic.
Goodwin also said no one on the 18-member board has asked Garrison to step aside.
Gov. Joe Manchin issued a statement Monday saying he wouldn't interfere in the leadership crisis and would defer to the board's decision.
Manchin said that although he appoints many board members, they do not serve at his will and pleasure and are free to act as they wish "as long as it is within legal and ethical reason."
"I consider this matter one that should be decided by the members of the Board of Governors based upon their own insights and beliefs and information, and as governor, I will continue to support whatever direction they believe is in the best interests of WVU both now and in the future."
The faculty has spoken twice on the matter, approving nonbinding resolutions that expressed a lack of confidence in Garrison's leadership and demanded that he step down, or that the board force him to resign.
Garrison has steadfastly refused to step aside over his administration's decision to give Manchin's daughter, Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, an executive master's of business administration degree she didn't earn.
Mountaineers for Integrity and Responsibility, a newly formed group of faculty, students, alumni and others, issued a statement saying it was glad to see the board taking concerns seriously.
"We understand that this must be a difficult issue for the board, and we are not surprised that they could not arrive at a decision in a single meeting," it said in an e-mailed statement.
Michael Perone, vice chairman of MIR, said he met Monday with Garrison for more than an hour, at the president's request.
"Mr. Garrison continues to believe that the report exonerates him. He specifically and exclusively blames Provost Lang and Dean Sears for the decision to award the unearned MBA degree to Ms. Bresch," Perone said in an e-mail.
"Mr. Garrison does not understand the vote of no confidence. He asked me whether the faculty lacks confidence in his ability to raise salaries or secure state funds, or whether the faculty questions his leadership and integrity," Perone said. "I had to tell him that, in my opinion, it is indeed a matter of integrity."
Several rank-and-file Republican lawmakers have asked the Legislature's Commission on Special Investigations to launch its own probe, but that panel's co-chair, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, said Garrison's fate remains with WVU's board.
Garrison is a Democrat, along with a majority of both houses of the Legislature. Delegate Linda Sumner, R-Raleigh and minority vice-chair of the House Education Committee, also deferred to the board but said its guiding priority must be the school's integrity.
"All the evidence has to be taken into consideration," said Sumner, an educator. "The students there have to be assured that their degrees are equal to those of other institutions."
Investigators found that WVU administrators added courses and grades, some "simply pulled from thin air," to beef up Bresch's incomplete transcript and retroactively award her the 1998 degree she'd been claiming on her resume.
Bresch is a longtime friend of Garrison, and Mylan chairman Milan "Mike" Puskar has given tens of millions to WVU.
While the panel found no evidence that Garrison directly interfered, it said the presence of his key staff at the decision-making meeting created "palpable" pressure.
Provost Gerald Lang and business school Dean R. Stephen Sears have since resigned from their administrative posts to return to teaching, with minimal salary cuts.
