Workplace mobbing researchers convene in Niagara

The Third Niagara Conference on Workplace Mobbing opened today, and I was privileged to participate in the opening session.

I've been likewise privileged to be part of the leadership team of this conference, though all recognition for the heavy lifting must go to fearless chair Professor Qingli Meng and legendary sociologist Ken Westhues. As host-Niagara University President Father James Maher recounted in his opening remarks, the progress since our inaugural conference is astonishing, including the founding of the World Association for Research on Workplace Mobbing (WARWM) and the Journal on Workplace Mobbing.

 

Baron Nigel Biggar (2023)
Elekes Andor via Wikimedia Commons
(2023), CC BY-SA 4.0

This morning's opening featured greetings, besides Father Maher's, from Nigel Biggar, an academic and member of the U.K. House of Lords (read more at, e.g., the Hoover Institution); Constanza Ceruti, University of Salta, Argentina; and John Mueller, University of Calgary, Canada.

 

I paste below the Niagara University press release on the third annual conference. The impressive conference program includes these multi-national presenters and subjects:

• Linda Shallcross & Summer Bland, Workplace Mobbing Australia and Summer Bland, Workplace Mobbing Australia, When Organisations Perpetuate Workplace Mobbing: Race, Gender, and Institutional Responsibility
• Linda Shallcross & Summer Bland, Workplace Mobbing and Organizational Response: Why Escalation Persists
• Qingli Meng, Niagara University, Institutionalized Mobbing and the Mobility of Power: Leadership Networks, Culture Transfer, and Accountability in Higher Education
• Lindsey Brown, Rochester City School District, Open Secrets: Inaccessible Texts as Roadmaps to Mobbing
• Catherine Koverola, licensed psychologist, When Workplace Mobbing and Moral Injury Co-occur: A Path Forward
• AnnMarie Flynn, independent scholar, Academic Mobbing as It Unfolds for Targets: An Inflection-Point Model of Psychological Injury
• Tamara Thermitus, McGill University and Toronto Metropolitan University Diversity Institute, When Silence Becomes Violence: Institutional Silencing of Black Women in Leadership
• Heliana Ramirez, Workplace Trauma Recovery, LLC, M.O.M. (Mobbing on Maternity) Leave: Impacts of Mobbing on Pregnant Workers and Their Babies
• Jocelynne Scutt, University of New South Wales, Mobbing "the Mob": When Workplace Dynamics Promote Mobbing Power
• Roselle Aranha, Niagara University, Ethical Leadership and Systems Thinking as Safeguards Against Workplace Mobbing in Higher Education: Lessons from Faculty Development and Appointment Processes
• Deitra Payne, Fabulous Coaching, Training, and Productions, LLC, From Silence to Safety: Human Resource Strategies for Preventing and Addressing Workplace Mobbing
• Cevat Celep, Girne American University, Mobbing Directed at Teachers in Türkiye
• Linda Crockett, Canadian Institute of Workplace Bullying Resources, Working With All Parties Without Excusing Harm: A Trauma-Informed Accountability Pathway for Mobbing
• Steve Fellner, SUNY Brockport, Academic Mobbing and the Fragmented Memoir
• Mariya E. Ivanova, Trakia University, From Experience to Analysis: Workplace Mobbing as a Systemic Phenomenon: Structural Amplification, Triggers, and Recovery
• Gisèle Yasmeen, McGill University, Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished: Whistleblowing and Workplace Mobbing in Publicly Funded and Regulated Institutions
• Maritza Reyes (at The Savory Tort), attorney and independent scholar, Qualifying Workplace Mobbing for Expert Testimony in U.S. Federal Courts
• Sandra Kouritzin, University of Manitoba, Civility as Governance: Linguistic Regimes of Credibility and Exclusion in Higher Education
• Paul Siskind, New York Healthy Workplace Advocates, Workplace Bullying and Mobbing: Legal Basics and Legislative Challenges
• Peter Coughlin, EconPolicy Research Group (Maputo, Mozambique), Canadian Credit Unions’ Vulnerability to Capture by Administrators and Directors: Remedies for Mobbing and Other Takeover Tactics
• Martin Sawma, Edwin Mellen University, Extending Conceptual Analysis of Reflective Motives to Causal Motivations
• Peter Wylie, University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Workplace Mobbing Victims Beware: Why Your Union Will Side With the Mobbers and Not You
• Paul Siskind and Mike Schlicht, New York Healthy Workplace Advocates; Qingli Meng, Niagara University; and Kenneth Westhues, University of Waterloo, Addressing Workplace Bullying and Mobbing Through Legislation
• George Perry, independent writer; Dave Scott-Thomas, coach and independent writer; Jonah Arnold, Health Law Firm; Christine Marie, independent writer; Michael Capiraso, independent writer, Media Coverage Transforms Workplace Mobbing Into Full-blown Cancellations
• Janet Glover-Kerkvliet, Kerkvliet Counseling Associates LLC; and Sonja Pitts, Reign Consulting Group LLC, From Crisis to Coordination: Toward a National Network for Workplace Mobbing Target Survivors

Auditorium at Niagara University this morning

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Niagara University Press Release

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY HOSTS THE 3RD ANNUAL NIAGARA CONFERENCE ON WORKPLACE MOBBING

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y. — Organized in partnership with the World Association for Research on Workplace Mobbing (WARWM), Niagara University is hosting the 3rd annual Niagara Conference on Workplace Mobbing (NCWM) on July 20–22, 2026 (in-person and virtual).

Workplace mobbing is a subtle social process in which an employee from multiple levels of positions in an organization becomes the target of a systematic, persistent, and collaborated campaign of collective aggressions in the workplace, with the goal of eliminating the person out of the organization meanwhile destroying their identity. Workplace mobbing differs from ordinary workplace conflict. It is a social process in which multiple actors participate directly or indirectly in ways of psychological attack against the targeting, with a predetermined goal of eradication.

By supporting the scholarly study of workplace mobbing as a distinct academic discipline, Niagara University is becoming a significantly recognized hub for research, scholarship, and global dialogue on workplace mobbing.

The workplace mobbing initiative aims to establish an academic framework for understanding, researching, and preventing workplace mobbing, distinct from general bullying. It also aims to publish research and influence policy, moving toward treating workplace mobbing as a recognized, serious form of systemic psychological violence.

The efforts have led to the creation of the Journal of Workplace Mobbing, the first ever refereed and peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated exclusively to the topic. Its inaugural issue (2025) includes multiple articles originating from the 2024 NCWM at Niagara University. This journal–conference pipeline further cements Niagara University’s role in shaping this field. The second issue is ready to publish.

The initiatives also bring together experts globally, notably Dr. Kenneth Westhues from the University of Waterloo, Canada, "the world's most renowned expert on mobbing in higher education" (The Swiss magazine Republik), "the world’s leading authority on academic mobbing" (Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars).

Niagara University welcomes scholars, professional experts, practitioners, and students to join us as we work together to advance the science of workplace mobbing.

About Niagara University. Founded in 1856, Niagara University is a Catholic and Vincentian institution dedicated to educating the whole person through a values-based education rooted  in justice, service, and compassion. For media inquiries, please contact: Alaina Jonathan, Asst. Director of Communications, phone (716) 946-2110, email ajonathan@niagara.edu.