Minority faculty members experience stress more frequently than their White peers, largely because of perceived discrimination and worries about personal finance, a new survey released Wednesday by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA shows.
A lead author of a report about the survey—formally known as the Undergraduate Teaching Faculty: The 2010–2011 HERI Faculty Survey—attributed the higher levels of reported stress among minority faculty to the fact that minority faculty tend to have lower rank in the world of academe.
“If you’re in a powerless position, you’re even more powerless if you don’t have tenure,” said professor Sylvia Hurtado, director of HERI. “If you feel that you’re marginalized and you don’t have the stability of job security, you’re going to feel much more vulnerable.”
Indeed, when it came to factors noted as a source of stress, Black faculty members were the most likely at 63.6 percent to cite subtle discrimination, followed by Hispanics at 42.6 percent and Whites at 24.7 percent.
Whites, on the other hand, with only one exception, were more likely than any other group to cite faculty meetings, colleagues and students as sources of stress. Whites were also the least likely to cite job security as a source of stress.
Christine A. Stanley, professor of higher education and Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity at Texas A&M University, said she was “not surprised that faculty of color face occupational stress more frequently.”
“There is prior research that supports these findings,” said Stanley, who served as editor of a 2006 book titled “Faculty of Color: Teaching in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities.”
