Two WVU academic leaders resign

West Virginia University on Monday said Provost Gerald E. Lang and the dean of its business school would resign June 30 in the wake of an investigation that found the school improperly awarded a Pittsburgh executive an MBA.

Lang had been with the university for more than 30 years. He is also vice president of academic affairs. R. Stephen Sears was dean of the college of business and economics. Sears was appointed dean at WVU in 2005.

The announcement comes less than a week after an independent panel released a scathing assessment of West Virginia University's decision to retroactively award an executive MBA degree to Mylan Inc. COO Heather Bresch.

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The report said the school's administrators used "severely flawed" judgment in awarding a degree to Bresch, who is the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.

WVU administrators lacked documentation to prove Bresch's claims that she'd finished her final semester with work experience credits, relying too heavily on verbal assertions and caving to political pressure -- whether real or perceived, the panel said.

Mylan (NYSE:MYL) is a manufacturer of generic drugs, based south of Pittsburgh in Cecil Township.