May 1, 2008
 
LETTER: Faculty Colleagues
Faculty Senate
West Virginia University
 
Dear Colleagues:
 
Last night, Michael Garrison said: "I was not involved in any way in the decision." He also said the report speaks for itself. I agree that the report does speak for itself but it says that he was deeply involved. I would like to suggest that he reads some articles on administrative ethics and responsibility and then re-reads the report. Garrison was involved in the decision in many ways and the report points to a leadership role that he took in this very serious scandal.
 
First, he was the individual who received the initial call from Bresch. His response was not to direct her to the academic program which is in charge of this degree. It was rather to delegate to his Chief of Staff Craig Walker to look into this matter. It needs to be clear that any action taken by Walker is indeed an action taken by Garrison.
 
Walker made several calls to Bresch and he was the person who rushed what the Panel called the decisional meeting. A proper action would have been to send this back to B&E and await a decision – like we deal with all such requests. Walker, acting on behalf of Garrison did not simply call for a meeting of officials, but rather attended and actively participated in the meeting.
 
He provided the story and overrode the assertions of Paul Speaker. He, again acting on behalf of Garrison, made the case that she should be awarded the degree. The urgency of his call for the meeting and his participation in the meeting communicated to people in the room that the President wants Bresch to have the degree. Three weeks after a prominent and respected dean was fired for disagreeing with Garrison, every academic administrator in the room had something to worry about if they disagreed with the President. That does not justify them going along, but provides context for their poor judgment. The point is that Garrison was present and participating in the decision making through Walker.
 
Second, it is hard to believe that even if the President did not send Walker to do his dirty work for him, he did not get debriefed on the outcome of the meeting. He either knew about the decision and did not do anything about it, or he did not know about the decision.
 
Either of the above possibilities provides evidence of very poor judgment and irresponsibility. If he knew what the decision was and disagreed with it, but still gave the degree, he is responsible to the point that he needed to resign immediately. He also cannot claim to know about the decision because simply the role and function of a chief of staff is to keep his or her boss informed on key decisions.
 
This was clearly a key decision. That is a sign of poor management skills if the president did not seek information on the outcome of the meeting. In either case, the President signed off on the degree that was granted to Bresch, and his staff confirmed to media that she had indeed received the degree.
 
Third, Garrison failed leadership is evident at all stages from the initial cover-up and stories by his staff, to his failure to act if he thought the provost was acting unethically, to his failure to control his chief of staff and keep him away from academic decisions (if that is what the President believed this was).
 
Fourth, administrative responsibility principles would have saved this president's integrity in one case only. If upon finding out what the decision was on the Bresch case, the president summoned his subordinates to his office and reprimanded them for their actions.
 
In this situation, he could have claimed to have found a problem and resolved it. This is the only action that would have vindicated the president. The president instead needed a full-panel with external reviewers, investigative journalism, and a wide scandal to tell him that what happened was wrong – and almost seven months later.
 
The President's continued denial that he had nothing to do with this is absurd at best. He should not insult our intelligence with hollow apologies, and playing divide-and-conquer with faculty members. If he does not want to resign voluntarily, he should apologize for making a mistake in judgment, for poor management skills and more recently for failing to understand the very basics of administrative responsibility and administrative ethics.
 
A sincere apology should involve an admission of guilt, a promise to not do this in the future, a remedy (ethics therapy), and for sincerity's sake, a hint of a tear. Of course, as a student of administrative responsibility and administrative ethics, I find myself compelled to say, will this president resign?
 

Best Regards,   Mohamad G. Alkadry, Ph.D. Director, Masters of Public Administration Program & Associate Professor of Public Administration