An adjunct professor of 25 years at Duquesne University died of a heart attack more than two weeks ago, but a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette op-ed brought to light the issue of part-time professors not being compensated properly.

The reporter who wrote the piece, Daniel Kovalik, said he was most likely the last person who ever spoke to Margaret Mary Vojtko. She had taught French at Duquesne for 25 years and reportedly only made an annual salary of $25,000 with no health benefits.

She died Sept. 1 as the result of a heart attack she suffered on Aug. 16. That day, Kovalik said Vojtko called him urging him to convince Adult Protective Services (APS) to leave her be.

Vojtko had survived cancer, but it came back and she was undergoing radiation treatment again. Unknown to her, someone had referred her to APS and she did not want the extra help. The same day of that phone conversation, in which Kovalik said she was under a lot of stress, Vojtko suffered her heart attack.

As an adjunct, Vojtko worked on a semester-to-semester contract basis and did not have any job security, nor did Duquesne offer her health benefits. According to Kovalik, she had also been recently let go by the university with no severance or retirement package.

Kovalik said he spoke to an APS caseworker to request they leave Vojtko alone, when the representative was surprised to learn she was a professor.

"The caseworker paused and asked with incredulity, 'She was a professor?' I said yes," Kovalik wrote. "The caseworker was shocked; this was not the usual type of person for whom she was called in to help."

According to the op-ed, Vojtko made about $3,000 to $3,500 per three-credit course she taught per semester. This added up to an average of around $25,000 per year. However, when she first was diagnosed with cancer, Vojtko had to lessen her course-load, meaning she could earn as much. So much less that Kovalik said in her last year, she taught one class each semester and made "well below $10,000."

John Plante, the school's vice president for university advancement, told Duquesne Student Media Kovalik's piece was flawed.

"Our defense is the truth. Mr. Kovalik has tried to frame this as an issue of human resources policy, but he is wrong," Plante said. "The support provided and offered to Margaret Mary Vojtko was broad, involving the Spiritan community, student housing, EAP, campus police, facilities management, and her faculty and staff colleagues."

In the same report, Duquesne's chaplain and director of campus ministry Rev. Daniel Walsh said the school did offer help to Vojtko by visiting her regularly and offering her housing.

"Mr. Kovalik's use of an unfortunate death to serve an alternative agenda is sadly exploitive, and is made worse because his description of the circumstances bears no resemblance to reality," Walsh said.

Kovalik, a human and labor rights lawyer in Pittsburgh, said Vojtko came to him for legal help when she lost her job. All she wanted he said, was a job so she could pay off her medical bills and that the school had given her nothing in letting her go.

He also said he was encouraged to write the piece by Vojtko's nephew, saying he did not want Mary Margaret "didn't die in vain."