West Virginia University President Mike Garrison, hit by two landslide no-confidence votes by the university's faculty, is to appear before the Board of Governors today to make a case for keeping his job.

The emergency meeting comes as some board members consider candidates to replace Mr. Garrison on an interim basis, sources close to the board have told the Post-Gazette. The people being discussed include several former WVU presidents and recently retired law school dean John W. Fisher II, these sources said.

That some board members have broached the subject of an interim president suggests the board is divided over whether Mr. Garrison should stay or go.

The board said Mr. Garrison asked for today's meeting to update members on steps he has taken in the wake of an April 23 report by an investigative panel that concluded top WVU administrators issued a fraudulent master's degree to Mylan Inc. executive Heather Bresch.

Ms. Bresch is the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin and a longtime friend of Mr. Garrison, who worked as a lobbyist for Mylan under Ms. Bresch's direction. Her boss, Mylan Chairman Milan Puskar, is WVU's biggest benefactor.

Board members had asked Mr. Garrison to deliver his report at their next regularly scheduled meeting June 6 in Charleston. Mr. Garrison asked to be heard sooner, the board said yesterday.

Alumni, faculty and donors have called for Mr. Garrison's resignation in the wake of the report, which outraged students, shocked alumni, caused donors to withhold millions in contributions and sullied the university's reputation. Faculty members and influential alumni have told Mr. Garrison he cannot survive the crisis.

Mr. Garrison, 39, has denied a direct hand in granting Ms. Bresch the master's of business administration degree in October, nine years after she left the program. The report put Mr. Garrison's top aides, including Chief of Staff Craig Walker and General Counsel Alex Macia, at the center of the decision.

Provost Gerald Lang and business school dean R. Stephen Sears resigned from their administrative posts days after the report was released, but have said they plan to remain at WVU to teach.

Board of Governors Chairman Steve Goodwin did not return a phone call yesterday. Neither did WVU spokeswoman Amy Neil.

Mr. Goodwin told The Associated Press yesterday the board has not been discussing possible replacements for Mr. Garrison and that the board has not asked the president to resign.

Sources said interim candidates under consideration besides Mr. Fisher are David C. Hardesty Jr., Mr. Garrison's predecessor; former Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Charles M. Vest, a WVU alumnus; former West Virginia Gov. Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board; former WVU President Neil S. Bucklew; and former WVU President Gene A. Budig, who held similar positions at the University of Kansas and Illinois State University.

Dr. Bucklew, currently a management professor at WVU, said he had not been contacted by anyone concerning an interim post and would not be interested in the job. "I'm very happy in the role in life I have here at WVU," he said.

Talk on the Morgantown campus about Mr. Garrison's future centers on two scenarios: that the politically connected attorney will remain in charge because of his relationships with Mr. Manchin and supporters he helped place on the board, or that he will be forced to resign because of pressure from faculty, donors and alumni.

Mr. Goodwin, one of Mr. Garrison's most vocal advocates, failed to reiterate his support following a three-hour private meeting of the board May 19. The same day, Mr. Manchin issued a statement saying he would not interfere in the board's discussions on how to deal with the continuing crisis caused by the academic scandal involving his daughter.

The board hired Mr. Garrison, who officially took office Sept. 1, and has the authority to fire him.

The Bresch incident has played a role in the resignations of some faculty members, advisory board members and others and could have an impact on recruiting students and faculty.

"I was turned off by what was going on there," said Dr. Keith Murphy, a Texas A&M University professor who briefly considered applying for an opening at WVU's School of Medicine.

"That place is in a state of discord," said Dr. Murphy, who has accepted a position at Clemson University. "I wouldn't even look at an institution that had that kind of mess and I can guarantee you a lot of people would feel the same way."

A grass-roots group seeking Mr. Garrison's ouster said it will tell board members at the June 6 meeting why Mr. Garrison should resign. Mountaineers for Integrity and Responsibility has collected more than 1,200 signatures calling for the president's departure, said WVU English professor Kathleen Ryan, a member of the group.

After the panel released its report, the board directed Mr. Garrison to develop a plan "to see that a situation such as this does not ever occur again," and present the plan on June 6. The board also directed Mr. Garrison to review the panel's recommendations, which included developing standard operating procedures for handling individual academic concerns brought to the president's office.

The panel did not recommend fixes to WVU's record keeping procedures, saying it did not find any systemic problems in the executive M.B.A. program, the part-time degree program in which Ms. Bresch participated.

Top administrators, including Dr. Lang and Dr. Sears, had told the panel they believed Ms. Bresch must have been the victim of a record-keeping snafu because other students had major problems with their records. But the panel concluded that wasn't true.

Panel members said they found "relatively minor" administrative problems involving the records of other students, problems that were "similar in nature and quantity to those encountered in like programs across the country."

Ms. Bresch's transcript showed she had failed to complete 22 of the 48 credits needed to graduate.

"In fact, the system did not fail in this respect," the report said. "The records were accurate. Ms. Bresch had not earned an M.B.A. degree."