On the Asinine Nature of Joyner's Award

(Image Courtesy of Dayton Business Journal)

Last week, the Dayton Business Journal released a list of the 50 most influential women in the Dayton area. Wittenberg President Lorie Joyner was named.

Certainly, Joyner and the administration she has resided over have been “influential” in many ways; as the Dayton Business Journal article notes, she has “led the charge for enhancements to the university including a $6.5 million technology upgrade plan, plans for a new indoor athletic facility, new educational programs and more.”

What the Dayton Business Journal failed to address, however, is that Joyner has resided over an administration for two years that pays over 30 employees a poverty wage.

Back in 2012, facing a large budget deficit, the university switched to a non-union janitorial contractor — a contractor that only pays its employees $8.50 hour and offers very little benefits, as opposed to the former union contractor, who paid $14 an hour and offered a much more generous benefit package. In short, the administration — Joyner included — essentially chose to contract the Burger King of janitorial contractors.

Joyner is not solely responsible for the cuts, but it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone in the administration should be honored as a business leader when the university pays a poverty wage. Which is to say: the end, the goal, the point of a business is to raise living standards, or, in Wittenberg’s case, to “pass light on;” while Wittenberg may do that for many students and faculty, it fails to do so for the families that have to rely on a sub-living wage to survive.

Ultimately, Joyner and the administration have hoarded light rather than passing it on. I’m not sure if that’s an influence worth honoring.