Heather Bresch, Ba, business, WVU

[genlock]

Panel: Bresch didn't earn M.B.A.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
By Patricia Sabatini and Len Boselovic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Dale Sparks/Associated Press
Heather Bresch, chief operating officer of Mylan Inc., in an April 8 photo.A five-member panel has concluded unanimously that Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, did not earn a master's of business administration degree from West Virginia University and that administrators acted improperly in granting her the degree retroactively in October, according to a person familiar with the report.

The panel's report, three months in the making, was delivered to WVU Provost Gerald Lang yesterday. Mr. Lang has said it will be shared with the Board of Governors and faculty senate after attorneys review it. How much of the report would be made public is unknown.

Ms. Bresch, a family friend and former business associate of WVU President Michael Garrison, has insisted she earned an M.B.A. in December 1998. A call to Mylan headquarters was not immediately returned.

Calls to WVU and Gov. Manchin's office also were not returned.

The investigative panel, consisting of two WVU professors and three professors from outside the state, was formed in the wake of a Dec. 21 Post-Gazette story that raised questions about how university officials went about granting the degree in October, nearly 10 years after Ms. Bresch left the program, despite official records that showed she was 22 credits short.

The newspaper's review of university records found that after the decision was made, WVU officials added 22 credits to Ms. Bresch's transcript, nearly half of the 48 credits the degree required. The changes included adding six courses, with grades, that previously were not on her record and changing two course "incompletes" to letter grades. The newspaper found the changes were made without documents showing she had registered, paid or done the work for the classes.

Since the Dec. 21 story, WVU officials have offered various, often contradictory, explanations of how they made the decision -- including acknowledgments by Mr. Lang and business school Dean R. Stephen Sears that they lacked the records to show Ms. Bresch completed the degree.

This month, Ms. Bresch told other news media outlets she made arrangements in September 1998 with WVU finance professor Paul Speaker, then head of the M.B.A. program, to substitute work experience for 10 credits she needed to graduate. WVU records indicated she needed 22 credits at the time.

Mr. Speaker has declined to talk specifically about Ms. Bresch, citing federal privacy rules on students records. But he has said he could not recall any instance in the history of the program when the school allowed work experience to substitute for course work.

Ms. Bresch has told university officials they do not have her permission to release to the public any information that is protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, sources told the Post-Gazette.

[genlock]

I didn't see coverage of this on the local stations.
Perhaps the squirrel story was bigger news for WSAZ.

[Cameron]

I didn't see coverage of this on the local stations.
Perhaps the squirrel story was bigger news for WSAZ.

13 risks losing their microwave system.

[CoolBreeze]

[Cameron]

Fark's investigative division says that she only turned-in 36 of the required 48 box-tops to get the degree.

[cgarison]

Fark's investigative division says that she only turned-in 36 of the required 48 box-tops to get the degree.

Well that take more effort than getting a degree from the University of Georgia. Despite the urban legend that if you drive through the town of Athens, GA, they will throw a degree in the car, in reality you have to come to a complete stop and the university officials will hand one to you through the window.

[genlock]

Fark's investigative division says that she only turned-in 36 of the required 48 box-tops to get the degree.

Well that take more effort than getting a degree from the University of Georgia. Despite the urban legend that if you drive through the town of Athens, GA, they will throw a degree in the car, in reality you have to come to a complete stop and the university officials will hand one to you through the window.

"Ya-ll's want fries with that?"

[Hoosier Daddy]

Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio will give you an Associates Degree if you teach a weekend class for them ...

http://www.logandaily.com/main.asp?Sect ... M=66336.53

Un-fucking-believable.

This cheapens the degrees earned by students who came to class every day, studied, and passed those classes.

[Mr. Jones]

From Scott Saxton's blog:

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin chose his words carefully Wednesday when discussing WVU's report that the school made an error by awarding an MBA degree to his daughter, Heather Bresch. Maybe a bit too carefully...

We caught up with Manchin at an event in Charleston that night.

He proceeded to tell us "I've known Heather since she was born..."

In fact, sources tell this pundit Manchin was even in the hospital the day of Ms. Bresch's birth.

Video of the comment from WSAZ

[The People's DJ]

Degree scandal costs WVU $2M donation of cash and art

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A philanthropic group will no longer donate $2 million in cash and art to West Virginia University because of a scandal over a degree improperly awarded to Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter, an official said Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The McGee Foundation notified WVU officials Tuesday that it will not donate $1 million and an additional $1 million in art to the university's Creative Arts Center, said R. Wayne King, president and chief executive of the West Virginia University Foundation, a private fundraising group.

King said he also has heard from several smaller donors upset about the fallout from the executive master's of business administration degree wrongly given to Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch.

He said he received as many as eight phone calls and e-mails Tuesday and Wednesday.

"It's not unusual across the country when a controversy or a difficult situation arises at a not-for-profit that some donors choose to express their dissatisfaction in this way," King said.

Both King and WVU President Mike Garrison said they hoped upset donors soften their stance.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080501/ap_ ... s_daughter

P.S. CHARLESTON, W.Va.? When was the last time anyone has seen it this way? I can't remember. Course it's the AP.

[lastone]

Although the answers to our questions turned out to exactly as we thought, there is one question I haven't heard asked....how many more Bresch's are there? Is anyone going to open the next "can of worms" ? Or is everything "fine" now ? That there is more wrong at WVU that's being hidden would be a good bet.

jmo

[genlock]

A female co-worker of Heather Bresch at Mylan admitted that her eMBA was obtained
using "life credits", or whatever they are called, at the same time Ms Bresch obtained her degree.

Link: Female? Mylan? Friend of Joe?
I suspect that the process is common not only at WVU, but at most universities and colleges.
Athletes, Legacy spawn of rich alumni, Politics, whatever.
We have all seen college graduates too stupid to cross the street.

WVU and the rest of academia just want this to go away as soon as possible.

[cgarison]

A female co-worker of Heather Bresch at Mylan admitted that her eMBA was obtained
using "life credits", or whatever they are called, at the same time Ms Bresch obtained her degree.

Life credits are perfectly acceptable for meeting the requirements of getting an MBA. Personally, if I were hiring and had a choice of two people for the same money and one had an MBA with life credits on the transcript and the other was fresh out of college and the only knowledge they have has been obtained through an MBA program, I would choose the candidate with life credits.

5 year of experience in business is much more relevant than sheepskin obtained through debating business theory.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Receiving life credits in an *honorable* setting requires formal testing on the credits to be awarded, or some type of quantative, concrete demonstration that the student doesn't need to take classes over subject matter they already know. I have no problem with a school offering life credit in lieu of sitting in the classroom and re-taking the course, but it shouldn't be an under-the-table handout to those with political connections when mastery of the course material does not exist.

I absolutely agree with hiring someone with real world life experience behind their degree.

[CoolBreeze]

[genlock]

They can't do anything to WVU president David Garrison.
He knows too much. Maybe they could find him another
High profile, low ethics position to occupy.
Maybe the Clarksburg Mafia could rub him out?

[Hoosier Daddy]

Clarksburg has a Mafia?

[Dave Loudin]

There IS an Italian Heritage Festival (known as the "T*lly Rally") held yearly in Clarksburg.