08 April 2008

DaughterGate: Bresch Speaks (Updated)

...and tells The Associated Press' Vicki Smith that she parlayed a "career-defining" job assignment - riding herd on a "complex corporate lawsuit" involving employer Mylan Inc. - into "work-experience credit for her final four courses" at West Virginia University's EMBA program.

"I secured my degree in '98 when my father wasn't governor, when (Mylan chairman) Mike Puskar hadn't given millions and Mike Garrison wasn't (WVU) president," Bresch told Smith.

Bresch also told AP that she's testified this effect before the panel assigned to investigate whether she earned the degree she received. "She said she cleared the work-experience-for-credit arrangement with Paul Speaker, the former head of WVU's EMBA program," the article said.

Speaker withheld detailed comment, pending any statements by the school, but did say that "he cannot recall any instance in the history of the EMBA program when work experience substituted for course work.

"If you look through the annals of anything at the university, you will not find a single course for which experience would replace the course," he told Smith. "If you were a CPA, you had to take our accounting. If you were an attorney, you had to take our business law. And it was very strict."

Update: Bresch also spoke to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and to WDTV in Bridgeport. The latter has posted video.

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