This study explored the multiple effects of "professionalization" discourse on the creation of a new early childhood teacher certification program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study explored two questions: How is the influence of professional ideology on the construction of the program linked to university prestige and expert knowledge? and How are professional identities represented in the text in terms of science and welfare? The work of Foucault was used to form an archaeological investigation of faculty meeting minutes and memos from the Elementary Education Area. These archival texts were examined for discursive formations without temporal relationships. In so doing, distinctions that were made about university-based teacher education, and the historical relationships through which they emerged, became more visible. The study concluded that various historical constructions governed the creation of the new program, including university prestige, expertise, psychology, and play. Seemingly apolitical, each of these constructions worked to solidify part of an apparatus of power that shapes and manages individuals and populations by formulating the terms of "normality" and "expertise." Unlike more traditional forms of governing, this type of management governs people under the auspices of being more "professional." (Author/EV)