EDITORIAL – WVU scandal threatens academic integrity

Last month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke a story that took into question a Master of… Last month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke a story that took into question a Master of Business Administration degree West Virginia University awarded to Heather Bresch, the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.

The Post-Gazette’s investigation began after the newspaper made a routine call into WVU’s Office of Admissions and Records to confirm Bresch’s academic credentials following her promotion to chief operating officer at pharmaceutical giant Mylan Inc. During the call, the office told the Post-Gazette that it had no records of Bresch earning an MBA but reversed itself days later, blaming the discrepancy on Bresch’s failure to pay a $50 graduation fee, which officials said prevented the recording of her degree.

WVU professors familiar with the university’s record-keeping system have raised concerns about the university’s reasoning, claiming it would be nearly impossible for the university to misplace records of Bresch’s 22 missing credits.

Several of Bresch’s fellow MBA students have also come forward, claiming that she was hardly in class, and that they were not certain she had completed the program.

In the days and weeks following the story, there has been significant fallout both on WVU’s campus and within the academic community, with many people crying foul play.

And while a WVU panel has yet to complete its investigation on the incident, if it becomes evident that Bresch had not completed her MBA degree, questions will obviously be raised about whether Bresch’s political connections – at the time, her father was a state senator, and she was employed with Mylan, a generous WVU contributor – had anything to do with her degree records.

The incident, while tainted by political and corporate connections, also reveals another unfortunate truth: how little Bresch’s graduate degree even taught her. If the panel finds that Bresch hadn’t, in fact, earned all 48 hours of credit required to complete her MBA degree, it will signify that the MBA was truly only in name, hardly barring her from a lucrative and successful business career.

It’s situations like Bresch’s that cause us to lose a little faith in academia.

We sometimes joke that bachelor’s and master’s degrees are only resume boosters that help propel us to future jobs – but is that really the case?

With increasing numbers of students graduating from college every year, the post-graduate job search has become hypercompetitive, a fact of life that often leads college grads into pursuing post-graduate coursework – even when it’s not always beneficial on the job.

While undergraduate programs – particularly in the arts and sciences – are designed to give students a well-rounded education, maybe we’re not getting enough.

Bachelor’s and master’s degrees should prepare us for the workplace and uphold due respect toward academic accomplishments, so that future employees can appreciate the value of a degree.