On October 2, 2007 Heather Bresch, the daughter of then-governor (and subsequently United States Senator) Joe Manchin of West Virginia, was promoted to chief operating officer at Mylan, a Cecil Township, Pennsylvania-based generic drug maker.
[1] On October 11, 2007 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contacted West Virginia University to confirm academic credentials claimed by Bresch, including an EMBA degree.
However, on October 15, 2007, a university spokeswoman announced that WVU officials had verified that Bresch had "completed all the requirements for an executive masters of business administration degree," but did not receive her diploma because she failed to pay a $50 graduation fee.
[5] The report's panel found that high-ranking university administrators "cherry-picked" information and that grades were "simply pulled from thin air" to grant Bresch the degree nearly 10 years after she was supposed to graduate.
The panel concluded administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claims, relied too heavily on verbal assertions and caved to political pressure.
[8] The Chairman of West Virginia University's Health Sciences Center neurosurgery department organized a faculty letter in support of President Garrison.