From 2000 to 2009 Umeå University had a genuine faculty board for teacher education that was responsible for both first-cycle teaching and research training. The board itself was an innovation in the Swedish high school system and introduced a new practice-oriented subject for the doctoral degree, "pedagogiskt arbete" ("Educational Work"). The origin, development and abolition of this faculty board, as perceived by a former Vice-Chancellor, is sketched against the background of political trends and academic rivalries. It is proposed that the local course of events at Umeå reflects the fortuitous interaction of two different kinds of polarised fields of interest. In the more general and long-standing tension between conservatism and progression in school politics, the conservative camp lost in 2000 but presently has the upper hand. This fact is to the advantage of the traditional academic subject "pedagogik" (Education) by lessening the threat to funding and positions represented by more practice-oriented school educators.