May 7, 2008
West Virginia U. Faculty Demands President's Resignation
Faculty members at West Virginia University have voted no confidence in Michael S. Garrison, the university’s president, and are calling for him to step down “for the good of the institution,” Paul Fain reports on The Chronicle’s Web site.
Demands for the president’s resignation come in the wake of a recent scandal in which the university retroactively awarded an M.B.A. to the state governor’s daughter, Heather M. Bresch, even though she had not completed enough credits to earn the degree, Fain writes.
The university’s provost and the dean of the business school resigned from their posts as a result of the scandal, “although both remain on the faculty, and Ms. Bresch’s degree was revoked,” he notes.
While an investigative panel’s report found that President Garrison was not personally involved in the matter, the president says he accepts “full and total responsibility for failures that led to the award of unearned credits and grades to a former student,” but has no plans to resign, writes Fain. He notes that “only the university’s Board of Governors can fire the president, and so far its members have expressed unanimous support for Mr. Garrison.”
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Wednesday May 7, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Faculty members can be such unrealistic boneheads. Just to be sure probably the enitre business faculty should resign, all staff related to the business program, the night janitor for the business building as well as anyone who routinely parked their car in such a way that the business building provided shade. Also, President Garrison’s mother should resign as his mother, for the good of motherhood on the weekend of Mother’s Day.
Take a deep breath and figure out that good university presidents are hard to find.
— John May 8, 02:37 PM #
President Garrison’s chief of staff was personally involved in the meetings leading to the issuance of the phony degree. He was in the room. The panel report finds that there was “palpable” pressure to award the degree. While “good” university presidents may be hard to find, there are many people in WV who will gladly work to hire a capable person of integrity to lead.
— Karen May 8, 04:49 PM #
“Take a deep breath and figure out that good university presidents are hard to find.”
Presidents who are complicit in such nonsense are not “good university presidents”—but count on some loyalist types to defend them no latter what they do.
— Landrum Kelly May 8, 09:39 PM #
We had a very good candidate for president of WVU — Duane Nellis — and chose this lunkhead instead. Now we will have trouble finding anyone qualified to be provost or indeed any other significant job on campus because who would want a job at WVU? Garrison must go for the good of the university he claims to love so deeply. What a disaster this has been for a university that was slowly growing into national prominence for academics as much as for sports prowess.
— MIRaculous Mountaineer May 11, 07:51 PM #
Paige Laurie all over again. Garrison has done the right thing but too late to get any honor out of it.
— Joe Blow Jun 6, 05:35 PM #