The biggest obstacle to recruiting tenured faculty members to supervise student teachers is that the task is - there's no tactful way to put it - boring, Ms. Power and Ms. Perry confess. They propose a better way. WE CAN BEST capture the dilemmas education faculty members face when they work with student teachers by presenting one hour in our lives as supervisors of student teachers. It's a chilly February morning in 1999, and Brenda is in a third-grade classroom at a local school, a professional development school site for the University of Maine. She sits in the back of the room while a student teacher stands at an overhead projector, slapping on page after plastic page of detailed maps of Germany. The student teacher is lecturing about the climate, the terrain, the language. The children sit glassy-eyed, silently listening to her. Finally, one child tentatively raises his hand and asks, Are we ever going to get to writing workshop? Why are we doing this instead? In a few minutes, the student teacher replies. My professor from the university is visiting, and I want her to see me teach. A couple of the children turn to the back of the room and glare at Brenda. Meanwhile, at a large consolidated high school 20 miles away, Connie is sitting in the back of a sophomore Spanish class. The student teacher is leading the class through a lesson in how to conjugate verbs. The class is taught primarily in Spanish. Since Connie doesn't actually speak any Spanish, it's a little hard to follow what is going on. But she dutifully takes some notes about who is responding to questions, noting the mix of males and females being called upon, and she reminds herself to consult with the cooperating teacher about the intern's language expertise. Connie also has a scrap of paper under her notepad, on which she surreptitiously writes a list of groceries she will purchase after finishing her observations that day. We are members of a rare breed - tenured professors at a major research university who volunteer to supervise student teachers as a regular part of our teaching load. The question of how major universities might involve more tenured faculty members in on-site preservice education in local schools is one of the critical issues facing many research institutions today. The research literature on professional development schools is not encouraging. There are many barriers to involving university faculty members in supervision, including lack of time, lack of support within the promotion and tenure structure, and lack of a fit with professors' scholarly agendas.1 We think these arguments all overlook the biggest obstacle to recruiting tenured faculty members to supervise student teachers. Supervising student teachers is - there's no tactful way to put it - boring. And we're talking mind-numbin', spirit-crushin' dull. We say this from personal experience, having spent too many hours in the last few years watching young teachers deliver stand-up lectures in lieu of their normal instructional routines - in hopes of impressing us with their ability to manage a classroom. We like schools. We genuinely enjoy watching teachers practice their craft, and we never fail to be amazed at the wonder of children learning. That's why we were shocked at how quickly we came to despise our new roles as supervisors of student teaching. We realize it's not the university's job to give us professional responsibilities that are always entertaining and intellectually stimulating. And it's certainly not the responsibility of our student teachers to keep us engaged or of school staff members to see that we are comfortable on their turf. But our work over the past few years has also shown us that these issues aren't just personal ones. There are inherent problems in the traditional model of university faculty oversight of student teachers. Until we have a little more honesty about what's wrong with the system, we cannot make it right. …