The 2014 Annual Meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators will be held in St. Louis, Missouri at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront. The theme selected by President Nancy P. Gallavan is Advancing Teacher Education that Matters in Teaching, Learning, and Schooling..

The universe consists of essentially two elements: matter and energy. Matter includes all objects with properties that describe their appearances, impressions, actions, and interactions. Teacher education encompasses many different matters whose diverse properties impact the nature of the people and our work. Energy pertains to the capacity to work. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; energy can only be transferred from one form to another form. As teacher educators, we attempt to understand all matters and to balance the energy. To maximize yet conserve our energies, our explorations of matters prompt us to identify, understand, prioritize, and demonstrate their roles and responsibilities visible in our programs and practices. Critical to our quest are four overarching qualities that influence our decision-making: success, satisfaction, significance, and sustainability. Stemming from both intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation, ultimately each of us determines the criteria that contribute to both our individual and shared definitions and aspirations relevant to the four qualities. Operating within complex and ever-changing contexts, our continuous introspections and conversations of matter associated with the overlapping spheres of energy comprised of teaching, learning, and schooling offer dynamic insights and inspiration as we engage in advancing teacher education that matters.