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Originally published February 11, 2012 at 5:01 PM | Page modified February 11, 2012 at 9:21 PM
No discipline planned at North Dakota degree mill
The Dickinson State University vice president in charge of overseeing the program in which students were accused of receiving degrees they didn't earn resigned Friday.
BISMARCK, N.D. — No immediate discipline is planned for any Dickinson State University employees after an audit determined the school awarded hundreds of degrees to foreign students who didn't earn them, the chancellor of North Dakota's university system said Saturday.
However, the university vice president in charge of overseeing the program in which the students studied resigned Friday after the audit was released.
Jon Brudvig, Dickinson State's vice president for academic affairs, will continue to work at the university in a yet-to-be determined role while he looks for another job, Chancellor William Goetz told The Associated Press.
The audit did not mention Brudvig by name, and Goetz said his resignation wasn't requested.
"It was a decision (Brudvig) made not to continue with those responsibilities," he said. "It was his decision."
Goetz wouldn't discuss whether the apparent suicide of university administrator Doug LaPlante was connected to the audit's Friday release.
The audit didn't mention LaPlante, but many affected students studied in the business program he led.
LaPlante, 59, the dean of Dickinson State's college of education, business and applied sciences, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Friday afternoon near an intersection.
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