
Death of an adjunct professor - denzil_correa
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/death-of-an-adjunct-703773/
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mathattack
It would seem like there would be some kind of middle ground where adjuncts
should be paid a little more and get health care, and students pay less in
tuition. $3,500 to teach 50 students? Where does all the tuition go? That's
enormous overhead for buildings and administration, especially in a low cost
area. Even you turn the $3,500 to $10,000 with a raise and health care baked
in, it's only $200 per student. (I'm making assumptions on class size)

~~~
tjr
I've worked as an adjunct professor at a community college. Class sizes
appeared to average around 20 students there, rarely above 30 and sometimes
around 5. In that environment, $3500/class seemed pretty reasonable.

~~~
bsullivan01
_In that environment, $3500 /class seemed pretty reasonable._

OK, but how are the professors expected to live on that ? Independently rich
or retired cannot account for any size-able number. CC are subsidized by the
state and county, or at least should be.

~~~
brucehart
Many adjunct professors are people who have full-time jobs doing something
else. A friend of mine did this one semester to make some extra money. He
worked full-time as a structural engineer, but took a long lunch three days a
week to teach Introduction to Statics at the university we both attended. He
said it was fun to do for one semester, but he computed that he was only
making about $10/hour when you included the time to prepare for lectures and
grade papers.

~~~
oulipian
In my experience, teaching has a way of ballooning to fill whatever time you
have. Teaching one class feels like just as much work as teaching three,
partly because either way you have to be available to students outside of
class - office hours, answering email, and so on. I can't imagine teaching a
single university class "for fun" while holding down a full-time job.
Certainly it's not something I've seen very often.

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gngeal
_Duquesne has claimed that the unionization of adjuncts like Margaret Mary
would somehow interfere with its mission to inculcate Catholic values among
its students._

I see. So treating old people in this way and leaving them in trouble after
you squeeze them out is a part of those "Catholic values"?

~~~
winestock
Read the next sentence: _This would be news to Georgetown University -- one of
only two Catholic universities to make U.S. News & World Report's list of top
25 universities -- which just recognized its adjunct professors' union, citing
the Catholic Church's social justice teachings, which favor labor unions._

~~~
gngeal
Well, their Catholics are apparently less hypocritical than Duquesne's
Catholics. I'm not sure, doesn't this simply reinforce what I was trying to
say?

~~~
msg
The "Catholic values" you criticize and approve of are not "catholic". Forgive
the pun.

Edit: I see a way to read your statement as saying that Duquesne has a twisted
view of Catholic values. Which I could agree with. However there is another
reading, not difficult to stumble into, where you are trying to make a general
statement about Catholic values, which I could not agree with.

~~~
guard-of-terra
This just proves that every Catholic is also a man (or woman) perfectly
capable of sin and malice, and so we would be pretty happy if every single one
of them would stop moralizing forever. Stop thinking that they are more right
and more good just because; and behaving after that.

Where can one unsubscribe from ever hearing of how religion tells us how to do
good and from ever facing any religion-based opinion?

Because I feel I still live in the _medieval times_ when I do.

~~~
msg
Hear my kind tone of voice encouraging you to engage.

If you feel that hypocrisy gives you a free pass to avoid engaging with a very
deep belief system with a philosophical head start on you of no less than
centuries, and your capsule summary of the Roman Catholic church is "medieval"
and "moralizing"...

I would say you actually need more exposure to Catholicism, not less.

Hypocrisy is a universal... so it is actually a horrible signal if you are
trying to figure out what to believe. And Christianity at least has a history
of facing this issue head on.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are
full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the
outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of
hypocrisy and wickedness."

\-- Jesus, in Matthew

~~~
guard-of-terra
I just don't see this head start preventing a single person from doing same
mistakes. This belief system seems like brain busy work: it makes you occupied
for some time but does not make you a better person any more that any
reflection will do when you are ready.

Add mythology to the mix and the system becomes net harmful.

Regarding Jesus: I just don't see "common christian" variety sort of people
care about Jesus. Yes they claim they "love" him, but they just aren't trying
to understand who he was as a person and therefore gravitate to beliefs that
would make him facepalm.

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pmorici
Where does Social Security Medicare and Medicaid fit into this? She was 83 and
well below the poverty line shouldn't she have been getting help from a t
least one if not all three of those program?

~~~
protomyth
She should have been drawing SS since she was 70. It would be Medicare not
Medicaid and I am not sure how it would have helped since she was already
being treated for cancer.

Contracting positions are hell on earth if you don't put money into savings.
Even if you work 25 years you need to put money away. We really don't have a
national pension system[1].

I would be curious how the whole Microsoft contracting lawsuit would apply in
this case. It seems it would have some relevance.

1) and looking at how underfunded the state one are, I don't see any hope in
that direction

~~~
x0x0
I believe SS benefits are indexed to earnings; if she had spent 2.5 decades
earning $25k per annum her ss benefits may have been quite low

it's worth noting that $25k pretax (and note $25k seems to have been a high),
even at a modest tax rate, could easily fall (post income, fica, etc) to $18k
post tax. Or $1500/mo.

medicare should start shortly after the 65th birthday, but people still have
to buy Part B and either part C or D. afaik part B requires a typical 20%
contribution; this can be quite painful if you're living / attempting to
maintain a house on $1500/month

old age is no picnic, particularly in the usa, and that goes double for people
who don't have significant savings

~~~
mdasen
Benefits vary based on income, but they're heavily weighted toward the low
end. So, a poorer person will get lower benefits, but their benefits will be a
greater percentage of their income.

Doing a fast calculation, someone who earned $25k (this year, not every year
with prior years taking into account how earnings change) would probably get
about $14k/yr in social security. So, it isn't a huge amount of money, but it
would bring it up.

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shortcj
My sincere condolences to the family of Margaret Mary Vojtko.

Regarding the subtext of adjunct professor / student tuition abuse and
exploitation for the keepers of the 'trademark and databases.'

We are almost facing the event horizon of a black-hole; sub-star level
lecturers are facing obsolescence. Mega-corp is trying to establish a
stranglehold on what may be the 'database.' The database will determine your
personal 'trademark' status in society and its integrity is something worth
fighting for.

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acuozzo
Everyone here should demand an explanation from Rev. Walsh. You can e-mail him
at: walshd@duq.edu

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davis_m
I feel for Ms. Vojtko's family, but I don't feel like complaining about
adjunct professor salaries is being fair.

These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant as
long term employment. These positions are meant for people from industry to
come in a teach a class on a specific topic they are experienced in. These
positions are not research positions, or anything of the sort.

Many of the people in adjunct positions have a completely separate full-time
jobs, or perhaps are retired. Offering them health-care seems silly, because a
large number of them already receive health care.

So parading one lady who treated the position as some kind of career path as
proof that professors at college's need to get paid more is silly. I
understand that my professors are going to be higher paid than most
(Software/Computer Engineering) but earning upwards of $200k with a great deal
of perks is fairly common.

~~~
lambda
> These positions are short term contract (6 months-1 year) and are not meant
> as long term employment.

From the article:

"Margaret Mary Vojtko... had taught French at Duquesne University for 25
years... Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges
and universities."

And further information, with sources, backing this up:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States#Adjunct_Professor_compensation_and_academic_use)

Lots of colleges are hiring adjunct professors to teach undergraduate courses,
rather than full tenure track professors. As they reduce their tenure track
hiring and increase their hiring of adjunct professors, it stops being a
short-term contract for a visiting professor, and becomes the only viable
career path for many people in academia.

The problem is, when many people think of professors they think of the same
tenure track professors that you're thinking of; fairly well paid, good
benefits, great job security (once tenure has been achieved, that is; before
that, the job security is pretty dicey), lots of academic freedom. What they
don't realize is that more than half of actual professors are actually low-
paid adjuncts with poor job security (and a good chunk of the rest are tenure
track but don't yet have tenure).

On top of that, you have post-docs and grad students doing most of the actual
research (and some of the teaching as well), and you realize that academia
looks pretty grim. Low paid people with low to no job security perform most of
the actual work, while people think of them as high-paid folks with strong job
security.

~~~
davis_m
I am unable to actually find an sort of source for the statistic that
"Adjuncts now make up well over 50 percent of the faculty at colleges and
universities."

It seems to go back to the SEIU, a group that is attempting to unionize
adjunct positions. I have seen it quoted in a number of ways, including "50%
of part time faculty at universities are adjunct." and "50% of teaching
positions at universities are adjunct."

I would like to see some sort of actual report that shows the source of that.
My (very limited, anecdotal) experience seems to indicate much fewer than 50%
of professors are adjunct. It all depends on how you count these things.

~~~
lambda
Following the citation in the Wikipedia article to
[http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/11/13/hoeller](http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/11/13/hoeller)
which links to [http://www.aaup.org/our-
work/research](http://www.aaup.org/our-work/research) which links to
[http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/AAUP_Report_In...](http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/AAUP_Report_InstrStaff-75-11_apr2013.pdf),
there's a chart on the first page with trends between 1975 and 2011.

In 1975, 45% of teaching staff was tenure or tenure-track, 34% non-tenure-
track (full or part time), and 21% grad students. In 2011, it's 24% tenure or
tenure track, 57% non-tenure-track, and 19% grad students.

Now, part-time employees may make up a smaller proportion of actual teaching
time than full time, but remember also that tenure track professors and grad
students spend time doing research as well, not all of their time is spent
teaching.

How many of your professors did you know the status of? I know that that
certainly wasn't something I kept close tabs on when I was in college; there
were a few professors who I knew well enough to know their status as tenured,
tenure track, or not tenure track, but for many I didn't pay attention. Many
of the adjunct professors are likely teaching intro-level classes that
everyone is required to take; your freshman English or writing or math
requirements.

Also recall that the more prestigious the school, the less likelihood that
they will rely heavily on adjunct professors. Smaller state schools, community
colleges, and for-profit schools may use them more often. Edit to add: the
AAUP has another report that breaks down the faculty by school, and you can
clearly see that these kind of non-tenure track and part time professorships
are much more common at community colleges, smaller less prestigious schools,
and for-profit schools, with some of them having 100% contingent (non-tenure
track) faculty:
[http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/AAUPContingent...](http://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/AAUPContingentFacultyIndex2006.pdf)

And further, they may be named different things, but be roughly equivalent in
job security, prestige, and benefits. Lecturer, instructor, visiting
professor, visiting lecturer, assistant or associate teaching professor, etc.

~~~
leoc
Nonetheless, the AAUP document seems to show that even at US public doctoral
and research universities, in 2005 non-tenure-track employees made up about a
quarter of the full-time faculty and about 40% of all faculty if you include
the part-timers (p. 18). There's also the issue of graduate students who teach
or do research work. The numbers apparently included teaching grad. students,
but only those which had been self-reported by their institutions as
"employees" rather than recipients of valuable teaching/research experience
(p. 10): it's not hard to imagine some under-reporting there.

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danso
Ugh, I was hoping that the "death" was just a metaphor, and that this was just
an essay about the end of adjunct teaching as a viable job...which, I guess it
is. I'm starting as an adjunct instructor next week, and I'll be getting
$1,000 for about 13 hours of actual teaching time and who knows how many hours
between classes doing grading/planning. But I have a regular job, this is just
a night class. I can't imagine someone actually depending on adjunct work for
the pay

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cafard
Distressing, but it leaves me wondering what Ms. Vojtko did until she was 58.
Had she retired from some other job, gone back into the workforce after the
death of a spouse?

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3am
Disgusting. Disgusting and disgraceful.

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ffrryuu
Yup, heard stories like this a thousand times.

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Glyptodon
Anyone told the Pope yet?

