Death of an adjunct

This is a really sad and touching story of how a university treated a loyal employee of 25 years. I thought it was worth passing on.



Death of an adjunct



Is the contrast between tenured professors and those without tenure usually so stark? This poor woman died penniless, suffering from cancer, unable to keep here house repaired, having been unceremoniously terminated by her employer of 25 years without even any severance pay, not to mention a pension. It seems they treated her quite poorly.



I recommend clicking the link to read the whole thing (it's not very long), but if you don't have time here's some of the key paragraphs:

Quote:

As amazing as it sounds, Margaret Mary, a 25-year professor, was not making ends meet. Even during the best of times, when she was teaching three classes a semester and two during the summer, she was not even clearing $25,000 a year, and she received absolutely no health care benefits. Compare this with the salary of Duquesne's president, who makes more than $700,000 with full benefits. Meanwhile, in the past year, her teaching load had been reduced by the university to one class a semester, which meant she was making well below $10,000 a year. With huge out-of-pocket bills from UPMC Mercy for her cancer treatment, Margaret Mary was left in abject penury. She could no longer keep her electricity on in her home, which became uninhabitable during the winter. She therefore took to working at an Eat'n Park at night and then trying to catch some sleep during the day at her office at Duquesne. When this was discovered by the university, the police were called in to eject her from her office. Still, despite her cancer and her poverty, she never missed a day of class. Finally, in the spring, she was let go by the university, which told her she was no longer effective as an instructor -- despite many glowing evaluations from students. She came to me to seek legal help to try to save her job. She said that all she wanted was money to pay her medical bills because Duquesne, which never paid her much to begin with, gave her nothing on her way out the door.

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