Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch's explanation of her claim that she earned a graduate business degree from West Virginia University is inconsistent with changes that WVU made to her records in October to show that she earned the degree.

Ms. Bresch's remarks this week came after months of public silence by her on the matter and days before a panel is expected to report on whether the university was justified in awarding the degree retroactively.

Ms. Bresch, the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, told The Associated Press and other news organizations that she made arrangements in September 1998 with Paul Speaker, the director of WVU's executive M.B.A. program, to use work experience to earn 10 credits she said she needed to graduate that December.

But WVU records had shown that Ms. Bresch needed 22 credits -- not 10 -- to graduate.

Her statement was the first time the explanation of work-related credits has been offered by Ms. Bresch or WVU, and does not coincide with changes WVU made to her record in October.

The Post-Gazette's review of university records found that after deciding to award the degree, WVU officials added six classes, worth 16 credits, to her transcript. Only one of the courses, worth four credits, was an independent study class that conceivably could have reflected work-related hours. The four independent study credits were recorded as having been earned in the summer of 1998, before Ms. Bresch says she spoke with Mr. Speaker.

The changes to the transcript also included awarding letter grades for two classes, worth six credits, that previously were recorded as incomplete.

Mr. Speaker, a WVU finance professor, has declined to talk specifically about Ms. Bresch, citing federal privacy rules on student records.

But he has said he could not recall any instance in the history of the executive M.B.A. program when work experience substituted for course work.

Universities are very careful when awarding work-related credits, said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Washington, D.C. Credit for prior work experience is not something negotiated between a student and faculty member behind closed doors, he said.

"Institutions tend to have very formal policies on how they handle these requests because it's a very slippery slope," Mr. Nassirian said.

Ms. Bresch, chief operating officer of the Cecil-based generic drug maker, has declined to speak with the Post-Gazette since October, when she told the newspaper she earned the degree but declined to provide her transcript. She did not respond yesterday to requests for an interview.

The Mylan executive has told other news organizations that "nothing could be further from the truth" that she was awarded the degree because of ties to her father, to WVU President Michael Garrison and to Mylan Chairman Milan Puskar. Mr. Garrison is a high school and family friend of Ms. Bresch and served as a lobbyist for Mylan. Mr. Puskar is WVU's biggest donor, with his name attached to the football stadium and the deanship of the business school, which administers the executive M.B.A. program.

WVU has said the questions regarding Ms. Bresch's records were "handled and we responded like we would with any other student inquiry."

Questions about how the university went about awarding the degree to Ms. Bresch were raised by a Dec. 21 Post-Gazette story. The newspaper's research found that WVU added credits to her transcript without records documenting that she registered, paid, or did the work for them.

Professors for five of the six classes added to her record said they were not consulted before the changes were made, which included awarding grades for the classes. The sixth professor could not be reached.

A WVU official in the registrar's office said in October that Ms. Bresch did not finish the degree. But the university reversed itself days later, blaming the business school's failure to transfer records for nearly half her course work to the Office of Admissions and Records, the university's official records keeper.

"We found all of the pieces of the puzzle and were able to verify that all the class work was completed. She did all 48 hours," WVU spokeswoman Amy Neil told the Post-Gazette Oct. 15.

Since the Post-Gazette story, WVU officials have offered various, often contradictory, explanations of how they made the decision -- including acknowledgements by Provost Gerald Lang and business school Dean R. Stephen Sears that they lacked the records to show Ms. Bresch completed the degree.

In January, WVU's faculty senate appointed a five-person panel to investigate the decision. The panel is expected to deliver its report to Mr. Lang in the next few days. Ms. Bresch told other news organizations that she appeared before the panel on Sunday. Mr. Speaker also has appeared before the panel.

A former WVU professor who taught one of the classes added to Ms. Bresch's transcript said yesterday that M.B.A. students who used independent study commonly were awarded three credits.

"I never heard of anyone having 10 credits," said Kunal Banerji, who now teaches at Eastern Michigan University.

Mr. Banerji said no one from the university contacted him before four credits for the global planning course he taught in the fall of 1998 were added to Ms. Bresch's transcript. The course was a requirement of the program, he said.

Most schools limit the number of credits students can earn through independent study and "would not approve that many independent study courses," Mr. Nassirian said.

He said the student and faculty member would agree to requirements of an independent study program in advance. A student would be given credit once his or her work was evaluated by the faculty member. The work would be reflected as independent study on a transcript, not as if the student completed a standard course listed in a school's catalog.

One student who was part of the December 1998 executive M.B.A. graduating class took exception to the arrangements Ms. Bresch says she made with Mr. Speaker.

"The whole idea is preposterous," said the student, who asked not to be identified.

"Every person in the class had a full-time job, full-time family, with quite a few in similar executive positions. ... None of us asked or sought that our work would sub[stitute] for a course."

Ms. Bresch also has said it was clear she earned the degree because she went to the December 1998 graduation ceremony and that her name was in the program for that event. However, the Post-Gazette reported Dec. 21 that even students who had not earned enough credits to graduate were invited to the ceremony and their names were listed in the program.

"Regardless if she was there, it doesn't say she graduated," Mr. Speaker has said.

The names of Ms. Bresch and four other students listed in the December program do not appear on an official roster of graduates for WVU's 1998-99 academic year. The four other students told the Post-Gazette they had not completed the required 48 credits by December 1998. Two of them said they went to the ceremony anyway.

The four eventually earned their M.B.A. degrees months or years later and their names appear on official graduation lists on file for subsequent years. Ms. Bresch's name could not be found on any of those lists.

Ms. Bresch told other news organizations she earned her degree in 1998 "when my father wasn't governor, when [Mylan chairman] Mike Puskar hadn't given millions and Mike Garrison wasn't [WVU] president."

However, WVU's decision to award Ms. Bresch a degree retroactively was made in October 2007, after Craig Walker, Mr. Garrison's chief of staff, had multiple phone conversations with Ms. Bresch. The calls included a nine-minute conversation Oct. 11, the day WVU's registrar told the Post-Gazette Ms. Bresch did not earn the degree.

By the time the 22 credits were added to her record, her father had been governor for three years, Mr. Puskar had contributed more than $20 million to the school and Mr. Garrison, with whom Ms. Bresch grew up in Fairmont, was serving as president, an appointment that was met with widespread protests from the WVU faculty senate.