Degree scandal costs WVU $2M donation of cash and art
CHARLESTON, W.Va.—A philanthropic group will no longer donate $2 million in cash and art to West Virginia University because of a scandal over a degree improperly awarded to Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter, an official said Wednesday.
The McGee Foundation notified WVU officials Tuesday that it will not donate $1 million and an additional $1 million in art to the university's Creative Arts Center, said R. Wayne King, president and chief executive of the West Virginia University Foundation, a private fundraising group.
King said he also has heard from several smaller donors upset about the fallout from the executive master's of business administration degree wrongly given to Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch.
He said he received as many as eight phone calls and e-mails Tuesday and Wednesday.
"It's not unusual across the country when a controversy or a difficult situation arises at a not-for-profit that some donors choose to express their dissatisfaction in this way," King said.
Both King and WVU President Mike Garrison said they hoped upset donors soften their stance.
McGee Foundation co-chairman John McGee, former publisher of the Charleston Daily Mail, told the newspaper for a Wednesday story that his foundation's board made the decision because Garrison has refused to resign following the scandal.
An independent panel recently concluded Bresch did not earn the degree in 1998.
Rather, administrators relied too heavily on verbal assertions and caved to political pressure, whether real or perceived, when they decided in October to retroactively award the degree to her.
Bresch's transcript was amended, with courses and grades added, after records discrepancies were discovered.
rising
falling 