The University of Pittsburgh has ordered a review of its due diligence and investment manager selection practices while it attempts to recoup $65 million it invested with money managers now accused of fraud.

Pitt officials, including Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, were unavailable yesterday to discuss the review's structure, if it will be done inside or outside the university and whether the findings will be made public.

"We're not in a position to go into those kinds of details," Pitt spokesman Robert Hill said.

The development follows the arrest Feb. 25 of two East Coast principals with Westridge Capital Management. Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh are accused of misappropriating more than half a billion dollars from public pension funds and from universities, including Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, which had invested $49 million with Westridge.

Two Ohio universities say they too may have been victimized -- Bowling Green State University, which invested $15 million from its operating budget with Westridge, and Ohio Northern University, which invested $10 million.

Pitt and Carnegie Mellon were introduced to Westridge by Wilshire Associates, one of the consultants that advises them on investing, parties involved have said. A former Wilshire lead consultant for Pitt's stock and bond portfolio told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette his firm properly vetted Westridge and saw no red flags.

Likewise, both Pitt and Carnegie Mellon officials have defended their investment practices as sound and said the enhanced indexing fund in which the two invested was considered low-risk. Mr. Nordenberg reiterated that in a statement Monday.

Nevertheless, he said Pitt does not want to wait for completion of the federal investigations "before taking our own first steps."

"We have initiated a review that will begin, not surprisingly, with a careful look at the history of our dealings with Westridge but that will extend more generally to our investment manager selection and due diligence practices," Mr. Nordenberg said.

His statement said Pitt is limited in what it can say because of the investigations and a lawsuit it and Carnegie Mellon filed seeking return of the funds. Without elaborating, he said the shape of the review will be affected by what is learned from the ongoing federal investigations.

Yesterday, State Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, a Pitt trustee, agreed with the decision "especially in light of a bad experience," though she said she's not sure anything could have been done differently.

"I'm glad they're doing it. I think they should," agreed University Senate President John Baker. He said he hopes the findings are made public and expressed confidence that an internal review would get at the facts.

"It's such a large sum of money, I'm sure there are people who want to know what happened, including people on the board of trustees investment committee," he said.