MORGANTOWN, W.Va.
R. Stephen Sears, dean of West Virginia University’s College of Business and Economics, will resign along with Provost Gerald Lang in the wake of a master’s degree scandal involving the governor’s daughter.
Lang announced his resignation Sunday. Sears, dean since 2005, then told Lang he also will step down. WVU announced Sears’ decision Monday. Both men will resign June 30.
Last week, an investigating panel issued a critical, 95-page report that concluded the two men were among several administrators who acted inappropriately and applied “severely flawed” judgment in awarding Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch a degree the panel said she did not earn.
Bresch, daughter of Gov. Joe Manchin, works for one of the university’s key donors, Milan Puskar, and is longtime friends with WVU President Mike Garrison.
The panel that studied her executive master’s of business administration degree, retroactively awarded last fall after records discrepancies were discovered, concluded there was no academic foundation for concluding she had earned the degree in 1998.
Administrators relied too heavily on verbal assertions and caved to political pressure, whether real or perceived, the panel said.
