A member of the advisory board for West Virginia University's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences has resigned, saying he will not serve under beleaguered WVU President Michael Garrison.

Richard V. French, director of the U.S. Department of Labor Program Planning and Results Center and a WVU alumnus, resigned from the advisory board Monday.

"As a native West Virginian and proud alumnus, I regret your administration's direct and ongoing role in forging the current state of West Virginia University - and I no longer wish to serve my alma mater under your leadership," French stated in his letter to Garrison.

French said his decision to resign grew from the controversy surrounding an unearned degree that WVU administrators gave to Heather Bresch, Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter and Garrison's friend.

"His administration and ... the decisions that have been made have put West Virginia in an academic quagmire," French said. "I do truly love West Virginia and West Virginia University and it pains me as to where things are now."

Fellow advisory board member Robert H. McNabb, president of Korn/Ferry International and CEO of Futurestep, a global recruiting firm, backed French's decision to step down.

"Based on the behavior of West Virginia University's leadership, you could see more people following his example," McNabb said.

On May 5, the WVU Faculty Senate voted overwhelming on a motion of no confidence in Garrison. Faculty senators demanded Garrison's resignation and said the highly publicized degree awarded to Bresch, a Mylan Pharmaceuticals executive, "has damaged his effectiveness and his credibility as president."

However, Garrison has no plans to leave, and the Board of Governors - the only group that can fire him - has backed his decision to remain in office.

Stephen Goodwin, chairman of the governing board, also came under fire from faculty and alumni for comments he made to WVU's student newspaper earlier this month.

He told The Daily Athenaeum he will not resign, and the faculty is not in charge of the university's administration.

"We're not playing 'who can pound their chest the hardest,'" he told the newspaper. "The law prescribes how the university is administered. It is by the Board of Governors. If they don't like that, the only way to change that is to change the law."

A member of the advisory board for West Virginia University's Eberly College of Arts and Sciences has resigned, saying he will not serve under beleaguered WVU President Michael Garrison.

Richard V. French, director of the U.S. Department of Labor Program Planning and Results Center and a WVU alumnus, resigned from the advisory board Monday.

"As a native West Virginian and proud alumnus, I regret your administration's direct and ongoing role in forging the current state of West Virginia University - and I no longer wish to serve my alma mater under your leadership," French stated in his letter to Garrison.

French said his decision to resign grew from the controversy surrounding an unearned degree that WVU administrators gave to Heather Bresch, Gov. Joe Manchin's daughter and Garrison's friend.

"His administration and ... the decisions that have been made have put West Virginia in an academic quagmire," French said. "I do truly love West Virginia and West Virginia University and it pains me as to where things are now."

Fellow advisory board member Robert H. McNabb, president of Korn/Ferry International and CEO of Futurestep, a global recruiting firm, backed French's decision to step down.

"Based on the behavior of West Virginia University's leadership, you could see more people following his example," McNabb said.

On May 5, the WVU Faculty Senate voted overwhelming on a motion of no confidence in Garrison. Faculty senators demanded Garrison's resignation and said the highly publicized degree awarded to Bresch, a Mylan Pharmaceuticals executive, "has damaged his effectiveness and his credibility as president."

However, Garrison has no plans to leave, and the Board of Governors - the only group that can fire him - has backed his decision to remain in office.

Stephen Goodwin, chairman of the governing board, also came under fire from faculty and alumni for comments he made to WVU's student newspaper earlier this month.

He told The Daily Athenaeum he will not resign, and the faculty is not in charge of the university's administration.

"We're not playing 'who can pound their chest the hardest,'" he told the newspaper. "The law prescribes how the university is administered. It is by the Board of Governors. If they don't like that, the only way to change that is to change the law."

Several faculty members referred to that comment at last week's Faculty Senate meeting.

"The issues at hand are extremely disappointing and the behavior of the Board of Governors towards our alumni and the recent comments regarding our faculty are reflective of a dysfunctional culture and poor judgment [from] the leadership of the university and the Board of Governors," said McNabb, who is also a board member for Rice University's business school and a member of Vanderbilt University's board of visitors.

Goodwin, a staunch defender of Garrison, said last week he would not pursue another term as chairman. Goodwin will continue to serve as chairman until July. He will remain on the governing board until 2010.

French is not the first to resign in protest over the fallout from an investigative panel's report of the Bresch situation. Sherman Riemenschneider, a math professor and one of Garrison's harshest critics, resigned as chairman of his department last month in protest of the administration's handling of the degree.

In their report released last month, the five-member panel found that high-ranking university administrators "cherry-picked" information and pulled credit "from thin air" to grant Bresch the degree nearly 10 years after she was to graduate.

The panel concluded administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claims, relied too heavily on verbal assertions and caved to political pressure.

The report did not find that Garrison directly interfered, but it concluded the presence of key staff in the decision-making meeting created "palpable" pressure.

Garrison addressed the Faculty Senate on Monday in his first face-to-face meeting with the senate since it demanded his resignation. Senate members sat silent during his address.

Members of WVU faculty will hold a rare gathering of the University's Assembly today to address the fallout from the degree controversy. The assembly could bring nearly all of WVU's 1,418 full-time teachers together.

"I would love to see the faculty maintain the highest level of solidarity in their position of asking for Garrison to step down, and for the university to go out and find an academic leader to run the school, not a political appointee," McNabb said.

To contact staff writer Veronica Nett, use e-mail or call 348-5113.