MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- West Virginia University's faculty senate yesterday voted overwhelmingly for the ouster of university President Mike Garrison after a debate in which he was rebuked for what one faculty member called a "serious academic crime" in the Heather Bresch M.B.A. controversy.

The nonbinding resolution, which asks WVU's Board of Governors to require that Mr. Garrison resign if he does not voluntarily step down, passed by a vote of 77-19. Two other resolutions that sought milder sanctions failed to earn a majority.

Mr. Garrison reiterated in a statement that he will not resign, saying he intends to continue doing the work the board has asked him to do.

"If he [Mr. Garrison] thinks the faculty is going to lay down, he's in for a surprise," said mathematics professor Sherman Riemenschneider, one of four sponsors of the resignation motion.

Action by the senate comes two weeks after an investigative panel concluded that the university had no basis for awarding a master of business administration degree retroactively in October to Ms. Bresch, Mylan Inc.'s chief operating officer. Ms. Bresch is the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and a close friend and former business associate of Mr. Garrison.

The panel's report triggered the resignations last week of Provost Gerald Lang and business school Dean R. Stephen Sears from their administrative posts. Both intend to continue teaching at WVU.

The special senate meeting, which lasted about two hours, was marked by numerous impassioned speeches by faculty members upset by what they called political decisions that damaged the university's academic integrity.

Faculty members also raised concerns about how alumni, donors and students are responding to the scandal.

"Alumni are enraged. Donors are closing their checkbooks. Students are threatening to disrupt commencement exercises," said Boyd Edwards, a physics professor. "For Mr. Garrison to remain [president] under these crippling circumstances would show he cares more for himself than WVU."

Sophia Blaydes, a senate member who represents retired faculty, took issue with anyone who might characterize awarding Ms. Bresch a degree she did not earn as "a minor mistake."

"The prerogative of the faculty was subverted by fraud," she told the senate. "I consider this a serious academic crime."

Mathematics professor Harry Gingold urged faculty to send e-mails to the state attorney general calling for a criminal investigation involving forgery of documents because of the alterations made to Ms. Bresch's transcript.

The five-member panel concluded that WVU administrators falsified her transcript by adding courses the Mylan executive did not take or pay for and by entering grades "simply pulled from thin air."

Mr. Garrison, a former WVU student body president, was appointed to the $255,000 a year post last year over the opposition of the faculty senate, whose members believed he lacked academic experience and were worried by his political connections.

In his statement issued after the vote, Mr. Garrison said he will continue "to work closely with faculty members, particularly those who have already demonstrated a commitment and a willingness to work with others."

Mr. Riemenschneider said Mr. Garrison's response illustrates why there is "a fear of retaliation on campus."

"I'm at a loss for words, but not surprised," Mr. Riemenschneider said of Mr. Garrison's statement.

If the board and Mr. Garrison ignore the senate's call for his resignation "then we will have to find other ways to deal with them," physiology professor Paul Brown said after yesterday's vote.

Mr. Brown is calling for "whistleblowers" to come forward to report on any illegal actions by the Garrison administration.

Yesterday's secret ballot occurred on a campus where many are afraid to publicly take a stand on whether Mr. Garrison should resign, particularly among those who oppose him.

"There's a significant measure of fear on campus," said history professor Matthew Vester, who conducted an unofficial poll on whether the president should stay or go.

Mr. Vester said 200 of the 210 faculty members who responded wanted Mr. Garrison to resign, but only 102 of them wanted their names to be made public. Only five of the 10 supporters of Mr. Garrison wanted their names made public, Mr. Vester said.

He said people at the university feel intimidated because "it has become clear at WVU that decisions are being made about personnel matters, academic matters based on political reasons."

Pharmaceutical science professor Robert Griffith compared Mr. Garrison, whom the board of governors hired for his political connections, to the legendary boss of New York City's Tammany Hall.

"Somewhere, Boss Tweed is looking up with a smile on his face. Patronage is alive and well at West Virginia University," Mr. Griffith told senate members.

Several faculty members from the university's Health Sciences Center said their colleagues feared there would be consequences if they criticized Mr. Garrison or the board. Associate professor Robert Chetlin cited "a profound fear of reprisal" among center faculty and said several of them were concerned Mr. Chetlin would suffer adverse consequences for calling for Mr. Garrison's resignation.

Last week, some center faculty members said they felt pressured to sign a letter in support of Mr. Garrison that was being circulated by Dr. Julian E. Bailes, who was a member of the search committee that led to Mr. Garrison's appointment last year. That letter was signed by 23 of the center's more than 600 faculty members.

Faculty senator Parviz Famouri, former senate chair, spoke in defense of Mr. Garrison yesterday, saying "he can take us to the next level."

In an e-mail Mr. Famouri sent to senate members over the weekend, he said enemies of the university were using the controversy over Ms. Bresch's degree to attack Mr. Garrison.

"We need to move away from the usual fear tactics that we have grown to be so custom to [sic] in recent years," Mr. Famouri wrote.

Current faculty senate chair Steve Kite also opposed the resignation motion. He said Mr. Garrison has fostered a spirit of shared governance at the university and sponsored a number of faculty-friendly initiatives.

"We have a president who has a deep respect for the faculty," Mr. Kite said.

Business school professor Virginia Kleist, who is in line to succeed Mr. Kite as faculty senate chair, spoke in support of Mr. Garrison's resignation, citing the damage the scandal has caused to the university's reputation.

"Our once-proud institution has been denigrated," she said.

"If we fail to pass and implement this motion, we as faculty are not acting as the primary guardians of our academic integrity," Ms. Kleist said, adding that the panel's report showed that Mr. Garrison was in the room by proxy when the decision to grant the degree was made.

Law professor and faculty senate member Patrick McGinley said his colleagues at WVU's law school expressed to him two "defining moments" that fed their determination to seek Mr. Garrison's resignation.

The first was board chairman Steve Goodwin's comments to the student newspaper Friday, which Mr. McGinley said displayed contempt for the faculty.

State law puts the board, not the faculty senate, in charge of the university, and "if they don't like that, the only way to change that is to change the law," the paper quoted Mr. Goodwin as saying.

The second was Mr. Garrison's response to questions during a television interview over the weekend in which he appeared to reject the findings of the investigative panel.

When asked if he thought Ms. Bresch earned her degree, Mr. Garrison responded that he didn't know. He also said he didn't know about the panel's finding that administrators falsified Ms. Bresch's transcript.

Also yesterday, the senate announced a faculty-wide meeting May 14 to provide a forum for more faculty to express their views on the M.B.A. controversy. The senate was required to schedule the meeting after more than 5 percent of WVU's 1,800 faculty members asked for one.