Academia, Religion

Duquesne University Professor Dies In Abject Poverty

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

250px-Holy_Ghost_Fathers_sealMargaret 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.

885 thoughts on “Duquesne University Professor Dies In Abject Poverty”

  1. Nick, I am not scared and worried. I only have ssd as my income and that willnot be effected, unless they screw with the debt ceiling and the government is left unfunded. I am worried for those for whom this is a hardship.
    I;m not, obviously. but you were not there and neither was I.

  2. I only got limited training @ Leavenworth. Why don’t we let Darren Smith weigh in on this.

  4. I’m not cavalier, I am knowledgeable and not able to be manipulated. I save my empathy for people who don’t have jobs. These folks do, they’ll be paid, and everything will be back to normal. We have 17 experiences since 1977 to use as a historical perspective.

    I get it. You’re scared and worried. I’m not. What else is there to say?

  5. Disable the vehicle and hope she doesn’t come out shooting an assault weapon. She was in a car they could not say hit in her in the knees and disable her that way. We have no way of knowing what she wanted or why she was behaving in the way she was behaving.
    As for being paid let’s hope that they get their checks before bills are due. Your wife is lucky she had a husband who also had income. Your cavalier attitude is appalling to me, Ah heck, so they have to waot to get their paychecks, big deal. Yes to many it is a big deal who rely on their checks to pay their mortgages, buy groceries, etc. Not everyone has a spouse, not everyone has savings on which they can rely, I daresay many of the folks not being paid, and not having a clue when they will be paid (and their is a lot of conversation as to whether in fact furloughed employees will get their retroactive pay) are worried a lot and do feel that the sky is falling as members of congress who are getting paid by ironically the money from many of the folk who are not being paid due to the repubs intransigence refuse to accept the law of the land and the will of the voters

  6. I should say my wife worked 15 of these shutdowns. No one died, no prisoner’s escaped, no one missed a check. Again, breeeeathe, breeeathe. It will all work out just fine. The sky is not falling.

  7. They’re essential employees. My wife was an essential employee through 5 of these shutdowns. Yes, they are not getting paid, but they get paid when the boys on both sides stop their pissing contest. And, this is a very odd and out of character stance you’re taking. I don’t think they needed to shoot this woman. Yes, she wanted that, but they didn’t need to do that. Disable the vehicle and get her the f@ck out of it. And, you do know that the nonessential employees will also be paid, don’t you. That causes rife because the essential ask, why do they get paid for not working? Not a bad question.

  8. No they are not getting paid – to go last first.
    I just watched the video a few times. They had no way to know if she had guns in the car, if she was going to be a shooter, if she was a terrorist They also did not know she had a child in the car by the accounts I have just heard, and yesterday’s.. It would have been better of course had she not died, the reports I heard yesterday, and the fact that she continued to drive at a high rate of speed, showed she was not initially mortally wounded.
    It is horrific that she died but hindsight is 20/20. She was not a terrorist, she was not someone with an assault riflle fleeing to the next place where she thought she could commit mass murder. Had she had a bomb and tossed it, killing people, had she sprayed the area with bullets you would be saying the exact opposite had the police not stopped her.

  10. leej, I may die. We are ALL on a “day to day basis” to steal a baseball phrase. And, that woman and her daughter would be better off if the Capitol Police were off work. They didn’t have to kill her. Have you seen the video??? Poor example, REAL poor one. Have you seen the face of that child and the cop holding her looking @ the bullet riddled body. You just shot yourself in both feet while trying to put your foot in your mouth.

  11. leej:

    that woman died because they did not take off, the police shot her. they should have been sitting at home and now that poor woman is dead.

  13. SOTB,

    Just so you know, I’m not here nearly as much as it seems. I just comment a lot and quickly. Although he doesn’t comment much, David (Nal) is here far more often than I am (and in fact I suspect he’s the one who freed your post), but any of the GBs are willing to help out with filter issues. And one (or more) of us is usually around. I’m usually here with coffee, lunch or in the evenings depending of what I’ve got going on in any given day although if I’m by a computer all day (which happens frequently), I often keep a channel open.

  16. <Blouise 1, October 3, 2013 at 11:35 am

    ” It concerns me that the general malaise might translate into what happened in Germany before the war when the Nazis came to power almost by default …” (Gene)

    Legit concern which requires an immediate and in-depth understanding of history and an ability to remove emotionalism from the analysis so that the leader can be unmasked and exposed before the reigns of power are in his hands. (It’s possible it could be a her.)

    I’m going to suggest, knowing that you will not take the suggestion personally, that the real hints lie within the culture in which you conduct your daily existence.

    Take note of Nal’s post at 10:42am today for it illuminates yet another piece of the puzzle. When turning you mind to the threat of a modern day American/Germanfication remember that the Tea Party first struck out from deep within Ron Paul’s libertarian movement.

    I’m not talking conspiracy … I’m talking natural progression of the scariest kind enabled by that general malaise to which you just referred.

    Blouise’s and Gene H’s concerns caused me to have a major memory hit. The TV series below directed by Michael Preece and written by Sally Drake and Tom Drake had something IMPORTANT to say back in 1989. Richard Dean Anderson acted it out and tried to make some sort of statement near the end of this episode in 1989.

    Blouise knows of my angst toward Mr. Burn’s (euphemism for an extremely powerful man today who was once POTUS with his son) and his cabal. Mr. Burns and his cabal have demonstrated a propensity for being a little too sweet on all things Hitler-esque.

    The very expression allegedly coined by him at a Alabama CIA symposium in 1980-90’s, “New World Order” (NWO), was actually from an Adolf Hitler speech. However, his version of NWO is different from the traditional screed from knuckle-head conspiracy theorists on the Internet.

    Mr. Burn’s NWO is a new way terrorists will operate in 21st century. How did he know that? Because IMO he arguably would command & control them with creepy CIA lunatics like Oliver North, Liddy, et al.

    What Blouise and Gene H. have said sounds so much like what I believe Mr. Burns has planned since he and his father conspired to help Adolf get advanced technology from an eccentric Serbian-American scientist before WW2. Historically Mr. Burn’s father did help Hitler get light arms assault rifles manufactured in his constituent’s state (Connecticut). Those rifles were used against allied troops.

    Mr. Burn’s father was subsequently indicted under the “The Trading with the Enemy Act 1939” but the case lost steam and faded away with Wall Street cabal help. Then Mr. Burn’s father (a Republican US Senator) historically conspired to have the head of our US military defense to conduct an illegal coupe against President FDR. It failed as they couldn’t get this honest man to CONTINUE their conspiracy to overthrow America and make amazing profits on warfare. His name was Major General Smedley Darlington Butler [Author of 1935 booklet of his speech: War Is A Racket http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0 ]. (Google: The Business Plot)

    Do your own research and verify what I’m saying. Something is going on and it’s not all that visible to the American public. You may have to dig a little into these people’s dark world to see what I think Blouise and Gene feel in their guts to be true. Mr. Obama I believe is ostensibly not part of this very old conspiracy. A pawn maybe but not a player.

    “First infiltrate than dominate…”
    ==========================
    MacGyver (1985) “Ten Percent Solution”
    Watch on HULU (IMDB link) for free (about 45 minutes with commercials)

    http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3183585049/?ref_=tt_ov_vi

    “An investigation into art fraud leads MacGyver to expose a group’s plan to infiltrate American politics via an old seemingly defunct German political organization.”
    ==========================

  18. Ah Nick, How easily you ignore facts if they don’t fit your worldview. To equate people die for more horrid reasons then not going to Yellowstone ignores that this woman may die, if not already because the shutdown means they cannot look for her. Cancer does not say “Think I will just stop growing until the shutdown is over so it won’t matter about the NIH trials.”
    It is a good thing the capitol police didn’t say yesterday since we are not getting paid, and do not know if we will get backpay when they finally end this idiocy, so we’re not going to make any decent effort, much less the concerted one they did, to stop this woman.
    Im not maniulted by the polls or the press but by the damage this is causing many people, some of whom in fact could die as a result of the shutdown

  19. You’re kidding here, right??? I guess the media is scaring the shit out of you, leej. I have total respect for the journey you have been forced to take because of pain. I do not suffer nearly as badly as you but do have significant chronic pain. We’ve discussed this. However, I refuse to be manipulated by pols or the press. I have said this shutdown is stupid and myopic, but it is not the end of the world as we know it. Thousands of people die DAILY for reasons much more horrible than us not being able to go to Yellowstone. Although, if I had a trip planned there I would be pissed. Obama could have killed many w/ drones since the shutdown, but we’ll never know…will we. And not knowing has nothing to do w/ the shutdown!

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