This paper argues that the reluctance on the part of university teacher educators to engage in thorough self-study, frequently a feature of accreditation processes, is inhibiting teacher education reform because the self-study can be a significant means to improve teacher education. Reluctance resides, in part, in the distinction between academic knowledge and its use and knowledge of practice and its use. University educators study others, not themselves. They deal day to day with academic knowledge, not knowledge of practices. But self-study demands the construction of knowledge of practices, with all of its high stakes and public validation. Education faculty who want to pursue broad collaboration with schools or significant institutional and programmatic reform must undertake serious, honest, and through self-study. They must develop a knowledge of practices to be used by themselves to make changes and improvements. Reluctance toward self study and change also resides in faculty attitudinal inhibitors to significant change--inertia, organizational and structural circumstances, personal attitudes, perception and conception of change, and the time, energy and hassle involved. (Contains 34 references.) (JB)