What should I do about a professor who got in my face and yelled at me? I'm a lab assistant at my university and one day some of my coworkers who are underclassmen asked me about my experience with a professor I had taken a couple classes with. I told them that every class that professor teaches is hard and that one specific class, is a "flipped" course in which students have teach themselves the material and come to class ready to just answer questions and do classwork. I also mentioned that in that particular class the professor would get frustrated when students asked her questions during class time (so much so that she would yell at whoever asked her a question and in one instance became so frustrated that she stabbed the white board with her expo marker and could no longer write with the marker because the tip was completely sunken in). I also mentioned that this particular class put me under so much stress that it caused me to develop anxiety. Everything that I told my coworkers was my honest experience with said professor. 

It is not the first time I've told others at work about my experience while taking classes with this professor as well as with any of my other professors (in fact, on that same day I had talked about many of my previous professors and my time in their classrooms). Somehow one professor who manages some of the labs found out that I was talking about that particular professor (I'm not sure what exactly she heard or how much of what I said she heard) and decided to get right in my face and yell at me to stop talking about said professor because she didn't like what I said. After having yelled at me she just briskly walked away. When she confronted me, I was standing right next to my coworker and I noticed that even my coworker had to pull her head back because of how loud and close the professor got to me/us. My ears were also ringing for a few moments.

I am not upset at the fact that whatever I said got out because I don't think I made any personal attacks, I simply talked about my experience in that particular professor's class. What upsets me is that the way the professor confronted me has really increased my stress levels and anxiety to the point that my blood pressure has risen. I am also experiencing dizzy spells, fatigue, and aches all over my body. I suspect that this is due to my anxiety. I have been stressing over this incident for the past couple of days and I'm not sure what to do. 

For now I've decided to go speak with a counselor to try and calm down and seek a different perspective on the situation. I'm also going to discuss the situation with one of my superiors at work and ask her for advice as well as get her perspective on the situation. I don't want to make any rash decisions or actions based on poor judgement and wild emotions. I am not comfortable enough to talk to the professor who confronted me (at least not 1-on-1). Can anyone give me any suggestions on what I should do? Do I contact the Dean? (Is there even enough basis to do this?)
It sounds like you were the victim of a (relatively moderate) kind of abusive workplace behavior.  I would not seek to handle this through the department-level chain of command but rather through the university level policies on such things.  

You don't say where in the world you are, but at a US university there will be something quite formalized in place about this: e.g. see this policy at my university.  Note that the prohibited conduct includes


  harassment of any nature such as stalking, swearing or shouting.


The webpage goes on to explain that any employee who witnesses this kind of behavior should report it to human resources (HR).  

You want to find the equivalent at your university.  When you report it, you should mention the name of your coworker, and they will very likely be contacted.  The rest of it is really up to HR, and they will know how to approach it confidentially and so forth.  They are also the experts on how serious the behavior is, but I think there is no question but that it is serious enough to report to them.

By the way, none of this sounds like it will be much fun for you, but I really encourage you to do it anyway.  I suspect that the likely outcome is that if this is an isolated incident, the professor in question will get nothing more than a talking-to.  But what if it isn't an isolated incident?  The community needs your help to identify and deal with the problem.