It is an academic rank for a type of job common in Canadian and Australian universities and colleges.
Possibly because on a per-course basis sessionals earn much less than their tenure-stream counterparts, in the last three decades many universities and colleges have developed a heavy reliance on contract faculty, with the result that the Canadian post-secondary educational system has developed a structural reliance on sessional faculty.
Common impediments to sessionals' research activities have historically included low salaries, ineligibility for merit pay and internal research funding,[2] and institutional policies against signing applications for funding from granting agencies.
Because an active research program and a strong publishing record (for original research) in major journals is often a key qualification for entry into a tenure-stream position, work as a sessional lecturer is widely considered among academics to be an "employment ghetto".
[3] The trend towards increasing reliance on sessional lecturers and other contract faculty is an instance of the casualization of academic work and has been criticized by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which has proposed that the current per-course stipend be replaced by a pro-rata model that recognizes the teaching, research, and governance contributions of contract faculty.