The multiple sources of workplace stress among land-grant university faculty

Workplace stress has received a fair amount of treatment in the research literature over the past decade. What has not been examined, at least not systematically, is this same phenomena inacademe. Our study looked at stress among university faculty at a land-grant university located in the western region of the U. S. Analyses from the self-assessment mail survey (N = 786) reveals that faculty in the Hard Pure Nonlife (e. g., Astronomy, Math, Physics), Hard Applied Nonlife (e. g., Civil Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, Computer Science) and Soft Applied Life (e. g., Education Administration, Special Education) experience more stress than faculty in disciplines such as Hard Pure Life (e. g., Botany, Zoology) and Soft Pure Nonlife (e. g., English, Philosophy, Communications). Careful attention was paid to the different levels of stress reported by male and female faculty, with women professors reporting a higher level of stress than their male counterparts. We provide an assessment and explanation for this finding. Research ends with several proposals for individual faculty, department chairs and academic administrators for addressing the problem of workplace pressure and work overload.