Researchers have investigated dozens of professions for evidence of job-related stress over the past 30 years. That includes, more recently, the field of mass communication, where editors, reporters, and even journalism students have been studied for evidence of profession-related stress. It seems natural and potentially productive to move this investigation further, into the ranks of those intermediaries between most professionals and the students, i.e., journalism and mass communication faculty. Job-related stress educators has been studied before, especially in the K-12 category, but no work has been done specifically on job stress university-level journalism and mass communication faculty. That group may merit as much attention as any other because of the multiple roles these workers assume. First, they are subject to the same situations and stresses as other professionals. Then, they also may be subject to stressful conditions on the job. And, researchers and students also have suggested that their behavior might be the source of some student stress.1 Some stress, of course, is needed to motivate job performance and to stimulate employees. As Paine notes, researchers have found that high levels of stress are an integral and largely unavoidable component of work. The problem arises when that stress becomes excessive and produces negative effects.2 Teachers are not immune to stress. Educating others is a complex and stressful task. It requires skill, patience, mental and physical fitness, and more, Greenberg said.3 Yet, they are among the most frequently criticized and underpaid practitioners the human service fields, he continued. They are exposed to negative stressors on a daily basis, including increased demands for service in the face of declining fiscal and operational support. This research project investigates stress U.S. journalism and mass communication faculty may face, how it manifests itself and how faculty try to cope with it. Theoretical considerations Conceptually, this study employs the person-environment fit theory of stress, which views stress as a product of one's environment and the ability of the person's adaptive resources to cope with the situational or personal conflict. Stress is seen as a process of interactions with one's environment and the individual's reactions to those contacts. It examines one's ability to control events, people and circumstances in his or her everyday life.4 The study examined perceived stress, not physical or emotional stress, as measured by application of some stimulus--room heat, noise, overcrowding. Operationally, stress was defined as reaction to demands on people that tax or exceed their abilities to handle those demands...[Stress is] your reaction(s) to persons, events, situations that you may find difficult to handle.5 The vagaries of stress are understood. It may be positive or negative, helpful or harmful. It is non-specific, affecting people in different ways. The same phenomenon may make some individuals depressed, others exhilarated, and others unaffected. In addition, the stress experienced on the job seems to be related to the stress in a person's private life and/or to his or her personality or temperament, although research on both is inconclusive.6 Work-related stress also is associated with job satisfaction. Workers have certain expectations of, and attitudes about, their jobs. To the extent that those expectations are met, workers generally are satisfied in their jobs. But, the opposite also is true.7 If conditions are not what they expect or need, workers may grow dissatisfied. The more dissatisfied they become, the more stress they experience. In continuum-like fashion, the more dissatisfaction, the more unrelieved stress workers experience, the greater the likelihood the workers may suffer psychological and/or physical burnout.8 Literature review Other disciplines have done a considerable amount of investigation into job-related stress. …