Special Session: Fostering Well-Being amid Cycles of Professional Shame in Faculty-Student Interactions

In this special session, we seek to cultivate an understanding of the phenomenon of professional shame, a painful emotional state that occurs when we fail to meet perceived identity-relevant expectations in our professional domains. We particularly work with attendees to examine instances of professional shame that arise in the context of teacher-student relationships within engineering programs. How might our interactions with students facilitate professional shame experiences, both for our students and ourselves? How can we advance well-being when we inevitably encounter these emotional experiences, both for our students and ourselves? By the end of this special session, attendees will have a nascent understanding of the concept of professional shame and be able to apply strategies to advance well-being when they experience this painful emotion.