Underpaid 83-Year-Old Professor Died Trying to Make Ends Meet by Working Night Shift at Eat an' Save

[Efilroft Sul]

85. I worked at Duquesne from 1990–1992.

I was a teaching assistant there, and I can tell you that they overwork you and underpay you for the privilege of earning a Master's degree. My final semester there, I worked for FIVE professors, corrected their papers and tests after I got home from grad school at night, stayed up until four in the morning doing their work, was lucky to find time to study and do my own assignments, and earned a $2000 stipend for that semester. There were also many days I showed up at school to find out I had 15 minutes to prepare for teaching a class of 200 students because the professor was behind in his or her latest "publish or perish" paper and didn't feel like lecturing that day.

The next year, after I graduated, my college there actually implemented the "Rob Rule," named after me, so that no graduate student would ever be overwhelmed like I was. As I read this story about Margaret Mary, it seems to me that the darker underbelly of the university hasn't changed a bit, all these years later.