<p>No, it’s that the tale is confounding. The article is written to tug heartstrings and some can’t find enough back-up info.</p>
<p>Many, many Americans are in dire circumstances. There isn’t enough work to employ all the PhDs who want to teach. The adjunct job doesn’t traditionally pay well. Everyone gets riled up.</p>
<p>The union is disgusting and shameless, using her this way. I am sure that she would be mortified. I doubt that if the university had paid her more, it would have affected her life at all. The reality is, sometimes older people need help. Adult protective services should have gone to check on her, though she was begging for them not to. I have seen this with some elderly people. There are so many resources, and they turn every single one of them down, or don’t even know how to ask for what they need. If you don’t have kids or close friends to watch over you, and INSIST when you must get help, you can die elderly and impoverished, especially as you start losing your mental functions. There were resources for her, but she was unwilling to use them. I don’t know if that was dementia related, or just pure stubbornness.</p>
<p>I saw something like this happen to a lady that I knew, and I will always regret not forcing help upon her. Surrounded by neighbors and people willing to help, she refused it, last telling me that she wanted everyone to just leave her alone. I didn’t want to make her angry, thought maybe she’d be okay or someone else would force help on her…but she ended up at the hospital a few weeks later. I don’t know if she’s alive now, and I don’t want to find out, because it bothers me so much.</p>
<p>Our department doesn’t have adjuncts. </p>
<p>I’d think that a university that presents itself as a Religion X university should be expected to follow the tenets of Religion X in its practices. Madaboutx felt that this was an instance of my forcing my morality on everyone. (I am not Catholic, incidentally.) Several posters think that for the university to pay the market rates is sufficient. I think that is sufficient for any non-religious institution. I just can’t agree that it is sufficient for a university that designates itself a Religion X university–assuming X to be pretty much any real religion, and not limiting it.</p>
<p>I recognize that the senior associate general counsel of the United Steelworkers is trying to use this situation to make the case for unionization. I actually think it makes a much better argument for Obamacare.</p>
<p>With regard to bluebayou, #173, obviously I am not suggesting that everyone needs to be paid above the median wage. I am trying to inject some realism about the consequences of major illness for the budget of someone who was living pretty close to the line. It was pretty clearly the out-of-pocket medical expenses that pushed the woman irretrievably into poverty. I don’t subscribe to the view that this was the woman’s own fault. </p>
<p>I appreciate the comments of alh, willowoak, and emeraldkity4 (and perhaps others who posted after that, or whose posts I missed).</p>
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<p>She got what was mutually agreed upon between her and her employer… Sure, her situation wasn’t great but there wasn’t anything wrong with it.</p>
<p>There’s a “Do you think this is ethical?” thread. I would be really grateful if some of you would post your opinions.</p>
<p>QM: I thought your posts regarding Catholic Institutions/practices were excellent and an interesting way to look at the situation.</p>
<p>Vladenschlutte, I can’t agree with your position in #185, because Duquesne says it is a Catholic institution and it is part of the catechism of the Catholic Church that:
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<p>This follows a quotation on just wages that comes from Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope)–I think it might be a papal encyclical.</p>
<p>My solution to this dilemma, if it were possible to go back in time and fix it? In a 25-year period, there must have been some opening in a full-time support-staff position that the woman could have filled as well as anyone, if not better. I can understand that Duquesne was not going to devote a tenured slot, but there must have been some alternatives that paid a living wage. My [secular] university has implemented a strategy like this a few times in the last 25 years, when a person’s service was valued, but their current position was not really tenable.</p>
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<p>I find that creepy. … </p>
<p>I guess those who have good jobs and aren’t afraid of losing them find those who weren’t able to get those jobs as inferiors. There was a reason she had to work until she was in her 80s … and it wasn’t because she had some altruistic notion of serving students. She had to pay her bills.<<<<</p>
<p>With all due respect, you either did not read this thread, or failed to understand what posters wrote. Frankly, I do not think anyone said this lady deserved “what she got” … Whatever that means. </p>
<p>Feel free to point me in the direction of the “many” who posted in a creepy manner. Not holding my bated breath.</p>
<p>Q, why are you holding up this particular church, in that way? Do we have to turn this convo to their flaws? And, do you not get that this woman isn’t the one special one somehow abandoned, a century tale. She refused help. You don’t know the first thing about her except what was painted in the union note or that some poster here managed to dig up- and believe me, there isn’t much findable.</p>
<p>Your heartstrings are being tugged, same as others. It worked. All this about her med costs and all, how you would go back and wave a wand- it worked. And, what about the younger guy with the baby, the man with the sick wife, the two kids unable to settle down because they can’t find teaching jobs and adjuncting pays less than full time? At what point do you tell them to get real, read the tea leaves, straighten their priorities, etc?</p>
<p>See what I mean? The focus is on this one lady. And she was described as fiercely proud. You think a PhD in French wants your support position? And could have filled it full time, 50 weeks/year? well, we don’t know. But she begged the author to call off APS. No one clearly intervened in any way that could resolve this, for once and for all. We don’t even know her mental health. she seems to have refused rescue.</p>
<p>Don’t mistake my realism for lack of empathy. But one has to look beyond the one or two tales that grab. there is a world of hurt out there. And tripling her salary to 10k still wouldn’t have been enough,. For reasons we Do Not Understand.</p>
<p>Xiggi, The madabout poster isn’t exactly sympathetic to the woman. Either are those who say she was stupid for not planning for her retirement … I’ve met enough people working three jobs to know that hard work and determination will not always bring a comfortable life or a decent retirement.</p>
<p>And, yes, lookingforward, I think she would have loved to have had that support position … If you can speculate, so can I. … The idealist at 30 is the realist at 60.</p>
<p>Speculation. And what about others- the single mom who needs help, the couple losing their home? The baby with parents too proud? We congratulate ourselves at this selective sympathy and blame the U?</p>
<p>If she had a better salary, what about the next person and the next? All U’s should do what?</p>
<p>I’d like all U’s … and businesses … to drastically chop the salaries of their head honchos. The difference in pay between the ranks is the worst it has been in this country … If this continues we’ll be writing a new “Les Miserables.”</p>
<p>It appears to me that the “help” that was offered was Adult Protective Services and Orphan’s Court. Was there something else that I haven’t read about? I think anyone in her right mind would refuse that.</p>
<p>If Duquesne were a Zoroastrian university, I would expect them to follow Zoroastrian principles in their practices. I did know before I encountered this particular story that the Catholic Church has specific teachings on just wages. Currently, it is part of their effort to oppose sweatshops in developing nations–where it is admirable. However, it is a teaching of very long standing. I don’t understand the nature of your objection to my holding them to the standards expressed in the catechism.</p>
<p>As mentioned, I don’t know how much time Duquesne expected the adjunct professor to spend on the classes. From the standpoint of the obligations of Duquesne, what the IRS thinks a class takes is not relevant. Duquesne might know that it would be expected to take more, or less. Their understanding of the time required is what would set the just wage for the work. Perhaps the wage was reasonable for the time required. </p>
<p>It does not appear to me that the interactions between the people with hiring authority at Duquesne and the adjunct professor meet the Golden Rule standard, on the face of it. Of course, there could be more to the story.</p>
<p>lookingforward, my point of view is that there is no amount of savings, short of tens of millions, that can suffice to cover the medical costs not covered by insurance, in some instances of illness. I don’t know how probable those illnesses are. I do know that my family’s health insurance policies, which are comparatively good, have lifetime caps that are frighteningly low, given the rate of escalation of health care costs.</p>
<p>I am a Methodist. There are several universities that originally had Methodist foundations, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Duke among them. To the best of my understanding, none of these schools advertises itself as a Methodist university. But if you can find a school that calls itself a Methodist university, and is treating or has treated any of its employees in ways that are incompatible with the Methodist tradition, I will be happy to complain equally about them.</p>
<p>The failings of the Catholic church, in practice, may not be appropriate here. We all know. And so how does the golden rule apply to all who need a U job? All those underemployed PhDs? Duq should make a decent paying place for how many? Or only those in service for x years or those who are sick but prefer work over public support?</p>
<p>My sil worked in elder social services, BTW. Hotline. She could recite the long list of support options. As I recall, one of the first was exploring family circumstances, along with food stamps, checking living conditions and arranging medical assistance.</p>
<p>All you’d have to do is see if Methodist colleges pay adjuncts more, how many needy they seek to employ, what their mandatory retirement age is, etc.</p>
<p>QM. I’ll ask again . What else should Duquesne have been expected to do? They did offer her help. I posted a couple of links in post # 132 that you may have missed. In addition,she refused many others’ offers of help. A very sad situation all around. And I agree with busdriver that the union lawyer seems to be using this poor woman for his own agenda.</p>
<p>Regrettably for parallelism, I don’t know that there are any universities that advertise themselves as Methodist universities (at least, not among the United Methodists–the Missouri Synod is something else). There are some practices of the church that are not consistent with my conscience–not least among them, the refusal so far to ordain gays. Some of my friends have quit the church on those grounds.</p>
<p>sevmom, I’ll take a look at the links you posted.</p>