Adjunctivitis: The Heartbreak Continues

Although it's hard to imagine anything worse than the sad story of Margaret Mary Vojtko, the Duquesne University adjunct professor who died in abject poverty, there is something worse: the official responses of the university to that story.

The first came in a letter to the editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from the Reverend Daniel Walsh, the university chaplain. He is appalled - not by the treatment of Professor Vojtko, but by the idea that the story was told at all. After all, when she was living in squalor and dying of cancer, they offered her charity! They visited her! That should make it all better, right? Read his letter here.

Then we have this gem from Ken Gormley, dean of the law school, who could not be more clueless. He claims that part-time faculty bring real-world experience into the classroom. This is true in many fields - a working lawyer teaching a course in law school would be an asset to the classroom. But Professor Vojtko's field was French - there is no "real world" job to bring to the classroom. My own field, English composition, is one in which there are no "real world" jobs - the field is the classroom. And yet it is probably the biggest user and abuser of contingent faculty in the academy.

Gormley also points a finger at "individuals who seek to build full-time careers by combining multiple part-time contracts, often at several institutions." In his rosy world view, where all adjuncts are merely supplementing their income and sharing their real world experience, it is the adjuncts themselves who want full-time careers who are the problem.

Let me say this right now: I know many many contingent faculty members. Not one of them seeks the life of a freeway flyer. They have been seeking full-time employment. And yet the academy continues to churn out qualified teachers with master's degrees and doctorates, creating a labor pool so large it is easily exploited.

Next, we have a letter from a staff member. This is probably not an official university response, but it does lead me to believe that the school is serving Kool-aid. The article, she claims, is "unfair to the university." Her letter contains at least one factual error (Professor Vojtko never slept in a classroom. She did sleep in her office sometimes.). She blames Professor Vojtko's family for not rescuing her from the poverty that a combination of university policy and cancer created. I wonder if she has any idea of what "family" that might be. She also claims that Professor Vojtko was receiving Social Security and Medicare. I wonder how she knows this. If Professor Vojtko's wages were as low as reported - and the university has not disputed that - her payment into Social Security would not have been very much - therefore her payments from Social Security wouldn't have been very much either.

But none of this matters. Neither charity nor defensiveness nor mansplaining justifies the exploitation of a woman who, from all reports, was both a good teacher and a good Catholic, by an institution that prides itself on instilling Catholic values in its students.