West Virginia University, via Associated PressGov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, with Senators John D. Rockefeller IV, left, and Robert C. Byrd, in 2006. Mr. Manchin’s daughter Heather Bresch is facing scrutiny over a master’s degree from West Virginia University, left. Officials at the college, , have been accused of rewriting records last fall to document that Ms. Bresch had earned an executive master of business administration degree in 1998. An investigation by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concluded that she had completed only 22 of the required 48 credit hours.The university has begun an investigation of its own into the matter.Ms. Bresch, 38, works for Mylan Inc., the world’s third-largest generic drug company, which employs 2,000 people in Morgantown. The company’s chairman, Milan Puskar, is a major campaign contributor to Governor Manchin, a Democrat, and is the university’s largest donor, having given it $20 million in 2003. Ms. Bresch has insisted that she earned her degree, and university officials have blamed a failure to transfer records for nearly half of her course work to the appropriate office for the situation, as documents were moved to electronic format from paper. But so far, the university and Ms. Bresch have not produced copies of her transcripts, receipts or other proof of her having paid for course work, or documents from the courses where grades seemed to have been entered years after “incompletes” were given.“This is really about the university’s credibility, and that affects the degrees we are trying to get,” said David Ryan, a senior and the opinion page editor for the student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum. Mr. Ryan said he had received several letters a day from alumni, almost all of them saying the university should investigate the matter aggressively and as quickly as possible.In a state with about 1.8 million residents, untangling the mess has been slowed by the tight web of personal ties between state political leaders and campus administrators and between the people involved in the controversy and those investigating it.For example, the university’s president, Mike Garrison, is a high school classmate of Ms. Bresch’s and a longtime friend of the Manchin family. He served as chief of staff to former Gov. , a Democrat, and was a consultant and a lobbyist for Mylan. His connections, including business ties to members of the university board, led many critics to charge that the presidential search that began in 2006 had been rigged in his favor. The Faculty Senate took the rare step last April of voting no confidence in him, even before he was appointed.University officials have called for any faculty members, graduates, administrators or students who know anything about the case to step forward. There may be reluctance, however, to speak out against the university or Mylan, for fear of being blackballed by two of the state’s largest employers.“In , there is a proverb that says that everything is political except politics, and that is personal,” said Conni Gratop Lewis, a retired lobbyist for nonprofit groups. “It’s a tiny state, with just two major universities, just one major law school and where many of us grow up in the same small towns or counties, so there ends up being just one degree of separation between people involved in business and politics and whatever else.”On Jan. 14, members of the Faculty Senate tried to widen that separation by voting 46 to 34 to urge the removal of one member of the investigating committee. The senate had raised concerns about the independence of the investigation if that member, Bruce Flack, was included in the process because he is vice chancellor of academic affairs for the Higher Education Policy Commission, a state panel largely controlled by the governor. Mr. Flack resigned from the investigation the day after the vote.The Faculty Senate also voted to urge that three people “independent of any governmental agency or interested party” be added to the panel investigating the university’s actions. “Bring in Scotland Yard if you have to,” Lara Ramsburg, a spokeswoman for the governor, recounted Mr. Manchin telling university officials recently. “He understands that as an elected official and public figure, he should expect scrutiny with regard to his life,” Ms Ramsburg added. “But he would hope that everyone would give his child, or any child of an elected official or public figure, the benefit of the doubt until the process is complete and all of the facts are known.”Questions about favoritism on campus come against the backdrop of a similar controversy elsewhere in the state.The State Supreme Court faced criticism for potential conflicts of interest surrounding a more than $70 million case involving the Massey Energy Company, the region’s largest mining company, because the court’s chief justice, Elliott E. Maynard, has been close friends for 30 years with Massey’s chief executive. On Friday, Chief Justice Maynard recused himself from the case after vacation photos from the summer of 2006 were released, showing the two men together in Monaco.The controversy at West Virginia University began after a reporter called to confirm the academic credentials Mylan listed for Ms. Bresch after her Oct. 2 promotion to chief operating officer. The university initially said that Ms. Bresch did not have an M.B.A. But on Oct. 15, campus officials said she had the credits but had failed to pay a $50 fee and did not officially graduate.After Ms. Bresch insisted she had received a degree, the dean of the business school, R. Stephen Sears, began investigating her academic history and made the decision on Oct. 18 to affirm that she had received an M.B.A. Mr. Sears could not be reached for comment. But in an interview with WTRF, a television station in Wheeling, he said that his investigation had been hindered by incomplete financial records, missing academic files and an inability to interview some professors about her course work because they had since left the university. He told the television station, however, that the evidence “was more supportive of her fulfilling the requirements than the other side of the story.” Mr. Spears also denied that politics, or the $1.5 million gift from Mr. Puskar that endowed his deanship, had influenced his decision.The Post-Gazette found, however, that the university retroactively added six classes, including grades, to Ms. Bresch’s record. Ms. Bresch could not be reached for comment. University officials declined requests for an interview.Ms. Bresch’s employer issued a statement defending her. “Mylan stands behind the integrity of its longtime employee and senior executive Heather Bresch,” the company said.A $5 billion company founded in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., in 1961, Mylan is now based in Canonsburg, Pa. Ms. Bresch began working for Mylan in the early 1990s while taking graduate courses at night and on weekends at West Virginia University.“Whatever they need to do, they need to do transparently and soon,” said Erin Board, a senior biology major at the university. Ms. Board conceded that academic paperwork could be confusing and that she would not be surprised by clerical errors of this scope. But she said it was time to get the matter resolved.“These are our teachers,” she said. “So we trust them and look to them to do the right thing.”
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