MORGANTOWN, W.Va.
Days after a panel’s damning report about West Virginia University‘s handling of a degree improperly awarded to the governor’s daughter, members of the faculty are debating what should come next.
Math department Chairman Sherman Riemenschneider told The Dominion-Post Friday he will make a motion at the May 12 Faculty Senate meeting calling for the censure of WVU President Mike Garrison and Provost Gerald Lang.
The motion will also call on the Senate to offer a vote of no confidence in the two men.
Some members of the faculty, though, think that won’t be enough. They argue that Garrison, Lang and R. Stephen Sears, dean of the College of Business and Economics, should resign.
“If you remain in office, things may eventually appear to return to normal, but they would not be,” reads a letter by physics professor Boyd Edwards, which was addressed to Garrison, Lang and Sears and has been circulated widely among faculty members.
“The damage caused is simply too great,” the letter reads. “Under the surface, wounds would remain unhealed. Even after the media attention fades, people inside and outside the university would remember that WVU lacks the courage to select new leadership when needed. Confidence in the leadership may never fully return. Private donations and federal funding may flag. The teaching, research and service missions of the university would suffer.”
