-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Margaret Mary Vojtko, an adjunct professor who had taught French at Duquesne University for 25 years, died of a massive heart attack at the age of 83. Adjunct professors at Duquesne make between $3000 and $3500 per semester per course. In the best of times, Margaret Mary, teaching three course, wasn’t even clearing $25,000 a year with no benefits and no job security. After Duquesne reduced her to one course, Margaret Mary couldn’t afford to pay the electricity bill and her home became uninhabitable in the winter.
Ironically, Duquesne’s president, Charles J. Dougherty, is a nationally recognized scholar and expert in health care ethics. Since Margaret Mary didn’t have health care, I guess there was no health care ethics involved. Duquesne’s president makes over $700,000 a year with full benefits.
In 2005, adjunct professors make up about 48% of the faculty at colleges and universities. Today, that number is 75% as universities cut costs by reducing the number of more expensive tenured professors. The cost savings are not passed along to students. Duquesne, a private university, has increased tuition an average of 5.4% per year between 2006 and 2010. Higher tuition and lower costs via less qualified professors, the best of both worlds, for the universities.
A majority of the 130 adjunct faculty at Duquesne decided to organize as a chapter of the United Steelworkers and submitted a petition for an election to the National Labor Relations Board. Duquesne hired a Memphis lawyer known for his counseling organizations on how to remain union free. Duquesne filed a motion that since it was a “church-operated school,” it was exempt from NLRB jurisdiction. The motion was denied.
Although Duquesne was founded by, and is sponsored by, members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, it does not depend financially on the Catholic Church, does not require its faculty members to be Catholic, and does not require its student to study Catholicism.
As universities focus on increasing their endowments through cost cutting measures like hiring more adjunct professors, they lose sight of their raison d’être, to provide a quality education for their students.
Only a small part of the U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on the percentage of faculty who are full time. Even this small part is being gamed by the universities. The University of Nebraska interpreted the U.S. News question on the percentage of full time faculty to cover only those faculty who are tenured or on a tenure track and not to cover adjunct faculty. While U.S. News has since detailed that adjuncts should be counted, the low contribution to a school’s ranking, just 5%, is obscene.
The Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice has declared that “Union busting is a mortal sin.” Georgetown University, one of two Catholic universities to make the U.S. News top 25, just recognized its adjunct professors’ union, citing the Catholic Church’s social justice teachings.
H/T: Daniel Kovalik, Austin Cline, Mark Oppenheimer, Claudio Sanchez, Scott Jaschik, Moshe Z. Marvit.
SOTB, Then what be your explanation of that OS comment? What’s his? Who the hell else is he referring to? Come on, you like the guy, I get it. Oh it’s a BIT vague, that’s the chickenshit part. I would LOVE to hear his explanation, would you?
Bron, When he was practicing law?
@Nick – Your making the same mistake Elaine M. did with me about Family-Values: Italians and Unions. And I still can’t think of the technical phrase OS told this was. Notice his last sentence. You are JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS not in evidence. OS was just being matter-of-fact about his Powerpoint presentation slides. Maybe he shouldn’t have shared his personal artifacts of his job if someone was going to take offense to his word choices. You falsely assumed he was talking about you.
Actually in reading the thread I really can’t see who he was replying to and about what. Maybe he did mean you in the “Victimstance” thing but the Sociopath thing was just a side bar. Otteray is very sensitive about people throwing around clinical phrases like sociopath or psychopath as it it were a laymen’s topic of conversation about another person. He just would not do that without first interviewing the patient face-to-face and then offering a professional diagnosis. It’s not like him to use “sociopath” in a sentence to insult someone. Capisch?
And SOTB, we have done this dance before. If you can get them to take their last shot and get back to substance I’ll stand down, w/ certain conditions.
“If you can get them to take their last shot and get back to substance I’ll stand down, w/ certain conditions.”
Funny how this sounds like the Republican house members blackmail with the shutdown. Nick of course doesn’t hold himself to the same conditions. Keep slinging the excrement Nick and It’ll only come back to haunt you. You been given good advice by many but your lack of respect for them is such that you would think they were under us “evil” GB’s spells, rather than clearly discerning the fool you’ve made of yourself here for no damned reason except to get attention and stroke your damaged ego.
SOTB, Gee, you’re the first person to tell me Gene is smart. Is he successful? Has he used his intelligence to help people? Has he produced anything? Written any books? Won any cases? Served any legal papers? There are a lot of smart people hanging in bars telling everyone how smart they are. Intelligence is God given. What you do w/ the gifts you were born w/ is all that matters. There are few things sadder than wasted talent.
Bron, If you read the thread, God bless you I know it’s long, I have made a good faith effort. And, SOTB has worked on me trying to end it. But, if these Guest Bloggers keep throwing barbs, I will too. I’m not French, I don’t surrender. All the warnings issued by the smartest man in the world, the jumping on cue to “you can leave” comment, tells me his goat is gotten. He’ll deny it, smugly. I will let the 3 take their last shots, and then go back to substantive comments. They’ll never agree because they love this feeding frenzy. It’s their life.
SOTB, The ravages of diabetes has left me Viagra dependent and certainly the antithesis of promiscuous. Those mofo’s are expensive. Plus I’m a one woman man, was even before getting married. How’s that for honesty. A person w/ their real name saying something like that. I open myself up for a lot of ball busting. But that, my man, is self-deprecating. I know I’m not a sociopath. I worked @ Leavenworth. That is a lab for sociopaths. And I hope and pray that my merely pointing out that I am clearly identifiable in any way, even indirectly, challenges the anonymity rule. My God, please know that was not my intent. I don’t want another pre-warning, or warning, or demerit.
Rays 3-0. Tribe need to get some men on base.
@nick spinelli – I’ve known OS, Mike S, and Gene for a long time now. The only one I don’t know what he does for a living is Gene. But I suspect I really do know (knowing my irrepressible nosiness as Malisha will attest to – BTW where is Malisha these days? 🙂 ).
Otteray Scribe is a BONA-FIDE professional that works for an mental health institution in the south. I know his real name and his place of business. He has not hidden that from us. He is called into the local justice system to be a professional witness in many legal cases down there. I respect his opinion on things like psychology, avionics, guns, etc. And Mike Spindell is a mental health practitioner too. Except he is too modest about it. I like to pile on the accolades and he pushes back. Mike is one smart-cookie.
Gene is actually a very nice guy and extremely smart too. I suggest that people don’t cross him or piss him off. BTDT and I remember the battle. It wasn’t pretty. If you’d just pull in your fangs a little maybe you two could get along during your visit here? And stop bringing up old wounds. That just stokes the fire we would like to see extinguished here. As the bible says: “stop keeping account of the injuries…”. Let bygones be bygones.
nick:
gbk and I dont hit it off very well but when he really comments, it is pretty dam interesting and very thought provoking.
I wish he would post more of his thoughts and insights. I know I would be better for it and so would many others.
As far as Gene H goes, he is really dam smart, I hardly agree with him on a single thing he says but I read it and sometimes it really pisses me off but then I go and do some research and try to make a case against it or if I cant I put it on the back burner when I know more.
They are going to challenge everything you write if they disagree with it, politics is blood sport and so is the realm of ideas. They hold their views as passionately as you hold yours.
I have, in the past, figuratively come to blows with some of these people and had my nose bloodied on more than one occasion. I hope I gave as good as I got. I took it personally at first but then I realized they just do it to get your goat, Gene H is a master goat getter. I can well imagine when he was practicing law that more than one opposing lawyer, after having his arse handed to him in the courtroom, wanted to physically kick his a$$. I imagine it was a sight to behold, by the end the poor guy was probably sputtering like a doodoobutt.
If you just let it go, it will stop. And if it doesnt? Well that says a lot about the kind of people they are doesnt it? And it will diminish their credibility.
Bobby Barrister, Please feel free to use it w/o attribution.
gbk, “this” refers to this thread.
SOTB, Oh, it was a chickenshit passive-aggressive calling me a sociopath, but that’s the way OS operates in these type feeding frenzies. Gene is the pit bull, MikeS is well…MikeS, and OS does this chickenshit. It’s happened before, happening now, and it will happen again because I’m going nowhere. I’ll dance on their graves. They won’t change and I you know I won’t. We have had truces. That’s the most that can happen here. But, I will not allow myself to be called a sociopath. Isn’t their standards and ethics for professional shrinks against doing stuff like that? I’m sure there is. I’ll research it.
“I’ll dance on their graves.”
A rather morbid turn of phrase from a completely angry and hostile individual. Nick, your words are your own worst enemy, that and your lack of anger management.
Nick,
“I believe you didn’t comment until this turned negative, led by Guest Bloggers. Am I wrong?”
I have no idea what you mean by “this” in the above quote.
My initial comment is easily found.
I was referring to secular-occupation not personality-type. I would have preferred Deinonychus and a Veliciraptor. But which one are you? You do know Stephen Spielberg mislabeled his Veliciraptors in the movies. They were actually Deinonychus depicted. 🙂
SOTB
nick,
I pass by this thread every couple of days, to marvel on its baffling longevity.
You said, “But, alluding to me being a sociopath is pretty low. And puts into question your shrink acumen.”
“Shrink acumen”? Would Mr. Dodgson’s Alice, having learned from experience, have “shrink acumen”? Would successful prevention of detumescence be the result of “shrink acumen”? How about a successful loss-control agent?
Thank you for that phrase. I will find ways to drop it into conversations.
SOTB, We have a few fundamental problems. Firstly, I found the biggest liberation in my life was getting out of that middle school mentality of caring about what people think about me. Oh, there are some people for whom I truly care what they think of me, but there are none here. They’ll NEVER be anyone that I’ve ever known, unless it is a personal long term relationship, not in this CYBER world, that I care what they think. On this point I think all the folks hear we’ll agree. I don’t like or respect the 3 in question, and vice versa. Hell man, I’ve worked for clients that I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. Liking someone is irrelevant to me as far as working positively w/ them. I have a track record and years of success to prove it. I bet you do also.
You give the 3 in question much more credit than they deserve. And, you have only directed your criticism toward me. It take 2 to tangle my man. If you want to broker a deal you need to also deal w/ the main 3. The others will fall into place. But, does being called a sociopath by an alleged professional comport w/ your view of proper decorum? Do some of the comments by the other 2 meet w/ your standards? They apparently do, since I’m the only one you’re addressing. Some of them have been spoken to about this. Consider that fact when putting the entire onus on me. I won’t be manipulated, you should know that.
“It take 2 to tangle my man. If you want to broker a deal you need to also deal w/ the main 3. The others will fall into place. But, does being called a sociopath by an alleged professional comport w/ your view of proper decorum? Do some of the comments by the other 2 meet w/ your standards?”
What is so apparent is that Nick shows a total lack of respect by those he is trying to court, likening them to thought controlled naifs under the spell of the evil three. He seems totally incapable of understanding how his attacks endgendered the response he receives and remains firmly convinced he is an innocent victim.
Technically speaking, SOTB, and I’m certain OS will back me on this, not all sociopaths or psychopaths are physically violent.
Otteray Scribe was NOT calling you a sociopath. He got on me once for using the phrase too liberally to describe some of my fellow employees. So I coined the phrase “quasi-sociopath” instead. I don’t know who he was referring to but it wasn’t you. Sociopaths are capable of murder. Is that you? Psychopaths are slightly different as murder is not their thing.
Here are some traits of a psychopath. Do you fit the model?:
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Emotionally shallow
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Poor behavioral controls
Early behavioral problems
Juvenile delinquency
Revocation of conditional release
Criminal versatility
Many short-term marital relationships
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Any one of these does not indicate anything. I’m pretty sure it would have to be the bulk of them together. The last one on the list may fit you. I don’t know 🙂
SOTB,
I doubt Nick is either psychopathic, sociopathic or narcissistic but he does display many of the characteristics you listed. I think he is a garden variety nueroitic with low self-esteem issues which he cover with false bravado. What I find ironic is that he’s a type of person I would normally feel compassion for, but the underlying, ongoing hostility of his behavior washes away any sympathy I might feel. Nick, despite the hearty bonhomie is a mean person and his occasional friendliness is as shallow as his stated interrogation techniques.
SOTB,
Actually, despite having some common features (like a notoriously thick skin) I’m a different sort of creature altogether. So no, I will not admit that which is not true. A gallimimus and a veliciraptor are both dinosauria, but they are not the same thing.
Nick,
I don’t follow any professional sports, nor college level, actually any at all.
If you have something to say then say it — let it stand on its own in words that are not assumptive.