Professor Spotlight: The Maue, The Myth, The Legend

PITTSBURGH -- “Someone referred to him once as a ‘Swiss Army knife,’” said Mike Clark, a colleague of Don Maue, “and I’m like, ‘He’s more than that. He’s the guy that designed the Swiss Army knife.’” 

Although the comparison is metaphorical, Duquesne professor Don Maue has a resume that earns him the association with the versatile tool. 

“I’ve almost never had to produce a resume,” said Maue. “Everybody’s hired me for me.” 

This was the case for one of his current jobs. On top of being an adjunct professor who teaches sound design and production classes, Maue is also the director of the Center for Emerging and Innovative Media (CEIM) at Duquesne. Maue has taught at Duquesne since 1996, and he worked in the university’s Computing and Technology Services department from 1998 to 2019, when he became the director of CEIM. 

Don Maue's desk in the Union Broadcast Center. Photo taken by Keira Kusmaul.

According to the Duquesne website, CEIM is comprised of the Union Broadcast Center, the College Hall Video Studio, and the College Hall Radio Studio. Maue teaches students how to use equipment and helps them produce their own content. 

“You can’t focus on what buttons to push,” said Maue. “Technology is going to change, so you better learn how to learn.” 

As a lifelong student and teacher, he knows a lot about learning. Maue’s current position at Duquesne is a homecoming of sorts, as he started his undergraduate career at the university in 1975. He ended up transferring to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, which he graduated from in 1979 with a B.A. in philosophy. 

Maue originally applied to University of Pittsburgh and was accepted to the Greensburg campus, about 30 miles from Swissvale, where he grew up and went to school with current Duquesne president Ken Gormley. However, Maue got cold feet about moving away from home. 

“That’s how I got to Duquesne, because I was too scared to go to Greensburg to go to Pitt,” he said. 

Although he graduated with a philosophy degree, Maue went on to be successful in many fields that had very little to do with his degree. 

After graduation, he taught at St. Raphael School in Morningside, where he helped run the computer lab and taught programming classes. 

According to Maue, the operating systems of the computers had to be loaded from a cassette tape, a process that could take up to 10 hours to complete for the whole lab. Maue was able to engineer a way to do it in just 30 minutes. 

He also discovered a video distribution system inside the school and began broadcasting a live news show to the classrooms every Friday afternoon. 

“I showed up, and I was like this master Wizard of Oz guy,” said Maue. 

The magic didn’t stop there. In 1981, Maue pursued his master's degree at University of Pittsburgh. However, before he could finish, he was offered a summer job at International Business Machines (IBM). 

From there, he went to a company called PC Solutions in 1984, where he taught people how to use a new program called Lotus 1-2-3. 

“I literally became the world’s expert at this,” Maue said. “People came from all over the planet, literally all over the planet, to sit with me, and I taught these courses.” 

Teaching wasn’t the only thing Maue was doing with this exciting new technology. He designed IT architecture to help big businesses integrate computers into their work. According to him, he worked with many of the major Pittsburgh corporations, such as Westinghouse Electric Corporation, H.J. Heinz Company, Pittsburgh Paint Glass Company (PPG), as well as several others. 

One of these companies was the Hillman company, which he went to work for after PC Solutions. 

“I worked with corporations literally all around the country designing, again, efficient and profitable IT centers so that we could sell companies for profit,” said Maue. 

In 1994, he quit his job, got a dog, and went to Florida State University to study guitar under Bruce Holzman. While he continued to consult for several companies, this time allowed Maue to focus on one of his passions: music. 

“Music has occurred for thousands of years,” said Maue, “from thousands and thousands of places around the world, so I’m a student of the world of music as much as I can.” 

One of the ways that he continues to study and practice music is through Desperado, an Eagles tribute band that he is a part of. 

Don Maue performing with Desperado on April 24, 2026. Photo taken by Jaloyn Fockler.

The group formed in 2012, and they perform at all sorts of venues. However, they don’t just sing the songs. 

“I’ve gone to Los Angeles,” said Maue. “I’ve been to their homes. The songs they wrote, some of the songs they wrote, they wrote at this place called the Troubadour, which is this club in L.A.

“I’ve been to that very club, sat in exactly the seats where they sat, and wrote out the lyrics to the songs that they did. So, I do this research that brings the whole experience of the Eagles in the ‘70s and Laurel Canyon and Los Angeles, and in the shows, I bring that to the audience.” 

When he’s not busy with his band, Maue is busy passing on his wealth of wisdom and life experience to his students. One of the things he makes sure to teach his students is a phrase he says often: 

“There’s no such thing as a thing.” 

While this message may seem somewhat cryptic, it challenges students to think beyond what they know. Duquesne student Harley Varavette recalls Maue saying it to him many times in the five years that he has known him. 

“He always wants some definition of an object, person, group” said Varavette. “He wants the definition of a thing because to him, he says, there’s no such thing as a thing. Define this. It makes you think more critically.” 

One example Maue gives is an oar. There are many different kinds of oars and many ways to describe an oar, but if you just call an oar an oar, you’ll miss out on so much important information. 

Even with everything he knows, Maue is always looking to learn more, and that keeps him plenty busy. 

“I’ve never been bored in my life,” said Maue. 

Mike Clark also speaks to the breadth of Maue’s experiences

“You can’t really describe Don Maue in one sentence,” he said.