Considering Implications for Self and Institutions in Navigating Transitions in Teacher Education Administration

ABSTRACT Three mid-career teacher educators, each of whom involuntarily served as mid-level administrators are now in the similar position of having left those roles. Each has a different story to tell and they come from very different institutions, yet find themselves experiencing many of the same issues and frustrations. This collaborative self-study was an intentional study of and reflection on how their administrative roles impacted or changed their perspectives on teacher education in general and how it changed them each personally. The weight of the role had lasting implications for their personal and professional selves. Their reflective journals, weekly online meetings, and responses to each other’s experiences resulted in findings that can inform the work of others in similar positions or circumstances. Those findings, while both similar and distinct, reveal enough commonality that we, as teacher educators often placed in positions of leadership, must consider the implications for our practice, our students, our scholarship community, and our selves.