Leonard Lopate at Large: Emily Barnett, Cagla Orpen, Barbara Bowen, Thomas Smith, and Chris Wright

Today on Leonard Lopate at Large, Leonard and his guests examine the fight in New York City over whether adjunct professors deserve to be paid higher wages. With Emily Barnett, president of ACT-UAW Local 7902; Cagla Orpen of the Academic Student Workers at New School; Barbara Bowen, president of CUNY's Professional Staff Congress and CUNY adjunct professors Thomas Smith and Chris Wright.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the last year recorded, fall of 2016, of 1.5 million college faculty members, 47 percent were part time workers. Yet for many adjunct professors, their salary is a small fraction of what the tenured profs in their own department make.