Carnegie Mellon University is not reviewing the actions of any other people in connection with irregularities surrounding a 2004 master's degree, confining its review to former Dean Mark Wessel.

Mr. Wessel resigned abruptly last week as dean of the H.J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management after the university concluded that he had made "an error in judgment" in granting a master's degree to a student in 2004.

The error involved approving "excessive transfer credits and excessive units for independent study in lieu of course work" for a student who was a mid-career professional and traveled frequently.

Mr. Wessel could not be reached for comment.

The Heinz School is currently investigating the status of the student's degree. University spokesman Ken Walters would not speculate on the time frame for such a review, but said that the new acting dean, Ramayya Krishnan, would form a committee to do the investigation.

Mr. Walters said that he did not know whether the university had ever rescinded a degree.

Because of federal privacy laws, the university is not identifying the student who received the degree.

The university generally limits transfer and independent study credits to 12 units each, said Mr. Walters, though he wouldn't say how many such credits the student received.

The number of credit units required for a Heinz master's degree ranges from about 144 to 200, he said. There are 12 semester-long courses in 144 units.

The university would not have expected the registrar's office to catch the error, he said.

"The registrar's role is to record credits, not approve them," he said. "The approval process occurs at the college level."

At the Heinz School yesterday, faculty continued to ponder the circumstances of Mr. Wessel's resignation, particularly on the heels of a degree-granting scandal earlier this year at West Virginia University.

"The difficult thing is there's not sufficient information to reach a conclusion about whether his treatment was just," said Stephen Roehrig, a professor of information systems.

"Certainly it was the right thing to do for the university to act quickly -- Holy West Virginia, Batman. Everybody I know is really disappointed, not necessarily in Mark, but in the end result."