Bad Data on Sessionals

By Alex Usher. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) put out a paper on Tuesday entitled Out of the Shadows: Experiences of Contract Academic Staff, which mostly presents data on a survey conducted by the association last year.  While the intentions might have been good, the resulting data – which is already getting lots of media play – needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  And one claim in particular – that the number of sessional faculty has soared by 79% in the past decade – needs to be debunked immediately. More...