The merger of the Christchurch College of Education with the University of Canterbury on 1st January 2007 was the pivotal point of major change for academic staff in the College, and focused a number of areas of contested values. This paper is a collection of four narratives of that change, each examining a particular issue. Each of the narratives tells the story of a particular struggle to preserve an aspect of the overall quality of teacher education, and also foreshadows an ongoing philosophical and political engagement in the years that will follow the merger. The weaving of the four narratives seeks to capture a sense of the multiplicity of professional concerns that are contested in the process of merger. Although this paper comes from the perspective of academic staff in the Canterbury context it has implications for other merged colleges of education, and for teacher education as a whole.