Phillis Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, Culture and Womanist Thought, and Executive Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University. 

Our careers will have disappointments, injustices, events which are unfair and, even shaming. How do we avoid boundary crossing, blaming, isolation, and personal ruin? What are communal and personal habits of coping, survival and collegiality in moments of unexpected professional grief and unmanageable career debacles?