`` She was a professor ? '' That 's what an astonished caseworker at Adult Protective Services asked about Margaret Mary Vojtko when informed of the 83-year-old woman 's destitute situation , according to an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Vojtko died September 1 of a massive heart attack . Yes , she was a professor . An adjunct professor of French at Duquesne University . Until she was not renewed this year , with neither due process nor severance pay . She taught students for 25 years , with no health benefits , no retirement benefits , and low wages . The minimum pay for adjunct faculty at Duquesne used to be $ 2500 per course . After an ongoing effort by the United Steelworkers to unionize adjuncts there , the university paid $ 3,500 per course . Vojtko 's situation was not unusual for adjuncts in academia . That is why many have taken the hashtag # iamMargaretMary to tweet their indignation at her working conditions , lack of support and lack of respect . The dirty little secret is that higher education is staffed with an insufficiently resourced , egregiously exploited , contingent `` new faculty majority . '' In addition to the 49.3 % of faculty in part-time positions ( 70 % in community colleges ) , another 19 % are full-time , nontenure-track . ( These numbers do not include graduate assistants or postdocs . ) Adjunct professors , like many hard-working Americans , are the working poor . They are one step away from `` We do n't need your services anymore '' or one medical emergency away from being destitute , like Vojtko . If Vojtko was good enough to be entrusted with teaching Duquesne undergraduates , how can the university justify not providing her ( and her adjunct colleagues ) with health care and other basic benefits ? If American higher education says to students and society that a college education is the path to the middle class , how can we justify such treatment of these professionals , with advanced degrees , who are teaching the students ? We are living a lie that cheats these professors and the students they teach , particularly in access universities and community colleges where adjunct faculty numbers , like percentages of lower-income students , are highest and instructional spending per student is lowest . The story is not just about Duquesne . Certainly , the institution 's wealth ( $ 171 million endowment , tuition over $ 28,000 ) and Catholic status ( Catholic social doctrine supports collective bargaining rights ) make the situation -- and Duquesne 's refusal to recognize a union that adjunct faculty voted for overwhelmingly -- particularly indefensible . Duquesne University 's administration has provided a response to the situation , suggesting that there were caring responses by people within the institution to Vojtko 's circumstances . However , acts of charity are not conditions-of-employment justice for hard-working adjunct professors . The larger issues are not about individual responsibility or culpability for actions toward Vojtko , but rather , about collective responsibility for the structural conditions of work that contributed to her circumstances , and that leave significant segments of the academic workforce with no benefits and low pay . So Duquesne should recognize the adjunct union , bargain in good faith , grant benefits and set up a professional development fund in Vojtko 's name . But this story speaks more broadly about a horrible reality in higher education . Adjunct professors , as part of a growing army of working poor , are at the center of the academic labor movement , just as fast-food workers are now at the center of the larger labor movement . We are in the midst of deciding the extent to which we are an inclusive society that will live up to our nation 's promise that hard work pays off . The question is : How will we treat working people ? Will we , the richest nation on earth , continue to structure employment in ways that reduce large segments of society to near Dickensian conditions of existence ? Or can we muster the collective will to appropriately remunerate and honor the work of all working Americans ? In academia , that means tenure stream faculty , staff , students , administrators , and communities must recognize in Vojtko 's fate the ugly and diminished future of higher education and choose , in big ways and small ways , a more equitable path . Adjunct professors have taken initiatives to change the status quo . Some have joined advocacy groups , such as the New Faculty Majority . Some are involved with caucuses within unions and professional associations where they gather data about pay and working conditions , define best practices , and work to ensure that adjunct faculty are not discriminated against . Adjuncts are organizing for benefits , a living wage , and conditions that will benefit their students and their schools . In Pittsburgh , as in Boston , Los Angeles , Seattle , and Washington , there are union campaigns for adjunct unions in private ( often wealthy ) universities . There is also much organizing in public institutions , and in units that combine adjunct with full-time and tenure track faculty . No one deserves the treatment and fate experienced by Margaret Mary Vojtko , who escaped the 21st century equivalent of Victorian poorhouses in a cardboard casket . American higher education can and should do better for those who teach our students .
Margaret Mary Vojtko , who taught at a university for 25 years , died in poverty . Gary Rhoades : Adjunct professors are paid very little and have no benefits . He says the dirty secret in higher education is that adjuncts are used a lot . Rhoades : The average adjunct salary was $45,000 last year.