The West Virginia Way

Over the past few months I've had a quite a few things I've wanted to write about: being a bride, buying a house for the first time, academia, the election. But recently there's been some things going down here in Morgantown, and at WVU in particular, that have distracted both me and everyone else in Morgantown, becoming all that anyone can talk about.

Last fall, the Pittsburgh Gazette wrote a piece on a former WVU grad, Heather Bresch, after one of their staff writers discovered that Bresch, an employee at Mylan Pharmaceuticals, had lied about a degree she had earned from WVU. Bresch was set to be promoted to high ranking executive position in the company, and in the course of investigating her credentials, the Pittsburgh paper uncovered that not have the academic credentials she claimed to have. Apparently, when the Pittsburgh paper called WVU to check to see if she had earned the aforementioned undergraduate and MBA degrees, they discovered that while she had begun her MBA degree here and completed roughly a year's worth of classes, she never actually completed the program.

Now, that wouldn't be such a huge deal--people have lied on applications about degrees and skills and jobs they've had since applications were invented--except just a few days after the Pittsburgh paper discovered that Heather Bresch didn't have the MBA degree she claimed to have she was suddenly, magically, retroactively awarded the very degree in question from WVU--nine years after she claimed to have graduated.

Who is Heather Bresch and why does she matter? Why, she's the governor's daughter! She got her degree the old fashioned way--she called Mike Garrison, the president of WVU and made sure that she was awarded that MBA degree she always wanted but only completed 26 academic hours out of 48 academic hours for.

Bresch and Garrison go way back. They were both in the same "graduating class" at WVU (she was in the School of Business and he was at the WVU law school), plus Bresch employed Garrison as a lobbyist when she worked for a firm in Charleston. When Garrison was appointed president of WVU by the Board of Governors it was widely (and correctly) believed that Garrison was just another crony of Bresch's father, Joe Manchin III.

Like Manchin, Garrison has conviently surrounded himself with people who will either protect him or take the fall. The Board of Governors, who appointed Garrison, are also the only the people who can "fire" him. Not surprisingly, the BOG is made up of people who Garrison knows from his past--one of them he practiced law with years ago. Garrison, like a true blue West Virginia crony, has managed to appoint people who have helped him along the to positions of power within in WVU: the dean of the medical school (for which the Public Health department is a part of) was someone Garrison had known for years and replaced a man who was forced out by Garrison after heading the department for 15+ years.

Garrison claims to have no knowledge or involvement in Bresch's mysterious diploma, as does her father, Governor Manchin. However, Garrison admits that he did receive a phone call from Bresch who said she "sincerely believed" she had earned her MBA. Instead of handling this matter himself, however, Garrison said he handed it off to Provost Lang and the Dean of the College of Business, Gerald Sears, who months later, as this whole thing unfolded, suddenly resigned (but who still teach at WVU and will rake in over $200,000 per year).

Garrison thinks, apparently, that he can pt his head down, ignore the outrage that has infected the campus and ride this out until the next year. Fortunately though, the faculty, staff and some of the students have signed petitions and held two seperate meetings in which they expressed their own sincere desire that Garrison get his ass kicked out of office. At the most recent meeting, over 600 faculty and staff met and voted 565-39 in favor of asking Garrison to resign.

This type of scandal doesn't just affect the president's office, BOG and the governor; it tarnishes the reputation of the school, chases off current and potential faculty and students and creates a backlash in which everyone walks around looking over their shoulders wondering if someone is going to accuse them of something. Furthermore, it makes people like myself who have worked their asses off towards their degree look bad. As another graduate student in Public Health told me: "I think about all the hours I spent working towards my degree, writing my thesis, doing my homework, going to class....time I spent away from my family...and someone like Heather Bresch can just make a phone call and suddenly be awarded an MBA."

The Bresch/Garrison scandal also perpetuates the image of West Virginia and West Virgininans as clanish and backwards, which is terribly unfortunate because of it overshadows all the good things about West Virginia and Morgantown in particuliar. People here are incredibly nice. The landscape is breathtaking. I know without a doubt I've received a far better education here than I would've at U of Iowa due to the well trained (and sometimes unbelievably demanding) . But how anyone know that? Your average person associates West Virginia with Hatfields and McCoy type feuds, coal mining and corruption, all of which are certainly a part of West Virginia history but really betray some of the lovely things about WV. Scandals like this also distract attention away from problems that really affect West Virginians like ridiculously high rates of obesity, smoking, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and poverty.

But don't take my word for it: read about a recent grad's opinion of what he thinks the university's presidents next move should be. Football fans should also take a look at this article with Rich Rodriguez, whose sudden departure seems a lot clearer given what we know about how Garrison operates.