The West Virginia University panel investigating whether Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch earned an M.B.A. degree in 1998 is "making progress" but won't issue its report on the matter for several more weeks, panel Chairman Roy Nutter said yesterday.

"It will clearly be several weeks yet before a report is ready," Mr. Nutter said in an e-mail responding to a question from a reporter. Mr. Nutter, a computer science and electrical engineering professor at WVU, declined further comment.

According to a source close to the situation, WVU President Michael Garrison and Ms. Bresch, daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, will be asked to appear before the panel. This source did not know whether the two had agreed to the meetings.

"Everybody I know is wondering why it is taking so long" for the panel to issue its findings, WVU physiology professor Paul Brown said yesterday. "It's not exactly a complex issue as far as outsiders perceive it."

A source close to the panel indicated that scheduling problems with some of the five panel members were causing some delays.

The panel initially began its probe in early January with Mr. Nutter, WVU professor Michael Lastinger and Bruce Flack, vice chancellor at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. They were appointed by WVU Provost Gerald Lang.

Mr. Flack subsequently resigned and was replaced by three members with no ties to the university or state government: University of Pittsburgh law professor John Burkoff, University of Missouri-Columbia management professor Lori Franz and Pace University economics professor Arthur Centonze. They were appointed by WVU's faculty senate Jan. 28 after senate members raised concerns about the panel's objectivity.

The panel was formed in the wake of a Dec. 21 story by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that raised questions about how the university went about granting the master's of business administration degree to Ms. Bresch, a longtime friend and former business associate of Mr. Garrison. Officials awarded the degree in October, nearly 10 years after Ms. Bresch left the program, even though university records showed she had completed only 26 of the 48 credits required.

Officials had told the Post-Gazette that business school records showed she completed the degree, but that a clerical error prevented those records from being transferred to the admissions and records office. They subsequently added six classes, including grades, to her transcript and changed two classes that had been marked "incomplete" to show letter grades.

Following the Post-Gazette's story, officials, including Mr. Lang and business school Dean R. Stephen Sears, acknowledged they lacked the records to show Ms. Bresch finished her degree.

Ms. Bresch, whose boss, Mylan Chairman Milan Puskar, is WVU's largest benefactor, has insisted she earned the M.B.A. in December 1998.

Mr. Lang has said he will share the panel's findings and recommendations with the faculty senate and the university's Board of Governors before making the report public. It isn't clear how much of the report will be released.