Faculty members, newspapers and education leaders yesterday urged West Virginia University to take stronger measures in response to an investigative panel's finding that the school awarded an M.B.A. degree to Mylan executive Heather Bresch that she did not earn.

The criticism ranged from calls for resignations to outrage that two high-ranking WVU officials said they would make the same decision again. It centered on three administrators:

• WVU President Michael Garrison, Ms. Bresch's high school classmate and former business associate and a longtime friend of her father, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.

• Provost Gerald Lang, who approved the decision to award the degree retroactively in October to Ms. Bresch even though the panel concluded there was no basis for it.

• Business School Dean R. Stephen Sears, who described his recommendation to award the degree to Ms. Bresch, chief operating officer of Cecil-based Mylan Inc., as a "judgment call."

Mr. Lang said he will rescind the degree based on the panel's recommendation. Yesterday, Mylan removed the reference to the degree from the biography of Ms. Bresch posted on the company's Web site.

Mr. Lang and Mr. Sears made no apologies for their actions and said they would make the same decision again.

"For them not to see the mistakes that were made would disqualify them from being left in charge of anything associated with credentials at that institution. It means they don't understand the job," said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

The comments came after the findings of a five-member panel appointed by Mr. Lang in January were made public Wednesday. The panel, led by WVU Professor Roy Nutter, said WVU administrators made a "seriously flawed" decision fraught with favoritism. The action reflected "failures of process and failures of leadership" at the state's flagship university, the report stated.

Mathematics professor Sherman Riemenschneider, a member of the faculty senate, said he is considering asking for a censure or vote of no confidence in Mr. Garrison and Mr. Lang.

"They show no contrition for their actions and are therefore not worthy of the leadership positions bestowed on them," Mr. Riemenschneider said.

Michael Perone, chairman of WVU's psychology department and a member of the faculty senate, said the report makes it "very clear how the Bresch case was treated uniquely and the impropriety of the process."

"I was dismayed that this particular case was treated the way it was and that the panel was unable to identify in a clear way who was responsible for the special treatment," he said.

Mr. Perone said he is considering what to do when the faculty senate meets May 12.

The Charleston Gazette yesterday called for the resignations of "those who tainted the state's proudest institution" and said the panel's report was "a blunt rebuke to WVU leaders." An editorial in WVU's student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, said the Garrison administration has "trivialized all degrees this university has awarded and will award."

The panel included three outsiders recommended to Mr. Lang by the faculty senate. Senate member James Culberson, a professor of neurobiology and anatomy, said his colleagues will probably have something to say about the administration's response to the report.

"This issue has very much been a senate-driven issue, so I'm sure it will be on the agenda," Mr. Culberson said.

Mr. Nassirian said "it would be very difficult to imagine that the faculty senate is not going to act forcefully by calling for resignations."

Senate member Dallas Branch, an associate professor of sport management, said "it was pretty big" of Mr. Garrison to take responsibility. While some of his colleagues may recommend further action, he said, "the faculty senate does not make decisions. It's a recommending body."