Another high-ranking official has resigned a leadership position at Virginia Commonwealth University amid complaints about an internal investigation of a degree awarded to Richmond's former police chief.

Col. William H. Parrish, a former Marine Corps commander and federal homeland security official, resigned this week as co-director of the VCU Public Safety Institute and charged the university with treating faculty unfairly in its investigation of the degree awarded last year to Chief Rodney D. Monroe.

Parrish did not name faculty members, but two other administrators who resigned their leadership positions have complained formally about threats allegedly made to the tenure of the Public Safety Institute's other director, Robyn Lacks.

"I have been extremely disappointed in the procedures utilized in dealing with the issue and in particular VCU's lack of support to these individuals during this very challenging and emotional period," Parrish wrote Tuesday in his resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"As a retired Marine Corps officer, I have always believed that loyalty is a very important leadership trait that runs both up and down -- from subordinate to superior and from superior to subordinate," he wrote to Stephen D. Gottfredson, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

"From what I have observed, albeit from a distance, I have not seen a display of loyalty at VCU regarding this issue."

Parrish wrote his resignation letter the same day VCU publicly revealed resignations by four other high-ranking administrators, two of whom also had protested the conduct of the university's investigation. All but one of the administrators are remaining in their faculty positions, as is Parrish, who is an associate professor of homeland security.

VCU officials had no comment about the resignation. Parrish also could not be reached for comment.

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Parrish has been a key academic partner in Virginia's efforts to bolster campus security and emergency preparedness, particularly after the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech last year.

He has been part of the state's Higher Education Preparedness Consortium, as well as an initiative led by Tech to secure $1 million in federal funds for security research by a number of state universities, including VCU and its Public Safety Institute.

"I don't see that this would impact those kinds of efforts," said Robert P. Crouch Jr., assistant to the governor for commonwealth preparedness. "I would hope not. I don't see why it should."

The wave of resignations is the latest chapter in a saga that began with allegations, made by an anonymous source in the university, that VCU officials improperly had granted a bachelor's of interdisciplinary studies degree to Monroe.

University auditors conducted an investigation on behalf of the board of visitors and concluded that the degree was improper because Monroe had completed only six hours of course work at VCU. The university requires at least one fourth of the work, or 30 hours, be completed at VCU for that degree.

The board of visitors allowed Monroe to keep the degree because he had done nothing wrong.

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VCU announced July 11 that it had taken disciplinary action against employees as a result of the investigation, but it gave no details because of privacy restrictions. A VCU spokeswoman said this week that the four resignations announced Tuesday were independent decisions made by the officials involved.

One of the officials, political science professor Robert D. Holsworth, said this week he resigned as dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences because of frustration with the way VCU handled its investigation. Holsworth, who was among those interviewed in the investigation, wrote a letter last month protesting its tactics and objectivity.

He said Lacks had been told by investigators that her chances for faculty tenure depended on how she responded to questions about the degree awarded to Monroe, who studied under her department.

Another official who resigned this week, Michael D. Pratt, also wrote a letter protesting the investigation and called for a new, outside investigation. Pratt stepped down as interim director of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and director of the Center for Public Policy, but he said his reasons were personal.

Rector Thomas Rosenthal said this week that the board of visitors would discuss the complaints about the investigation at its meeting next month.

Neither the attorney general nor the governor's office plans to investigate the complaints. VCU is a legal client of the attorney general, and a spokeswoman for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said his office hasn't been asked to get involved.

"At this point, we see this as an internal university issue," communications director Delacey Skinner said.

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.