Nancy Flanagan is a 31-year teaching veteran (K-12 Music) who recently retired from Hartland (MI) Consolidated Schools to become a full-time doctoral student at Michigan State University (Education Policy). She has also piloted a Web-based graduate teacher leadership course for Virginia Commonwealth University. Nancy became an NBCT in 1998 (Early Adolescence Generalist) and worked for two years as a Teacher in Residence with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and as a consultant with the Michigan Education Association. She was Michigan Teacher of the Year in 1993, a Danforth Teacher Leadership Fellow, and a featured teacher in the Annenberg/PBS Learning Classroom series. From 1994-2001, Nancy moderated the State Teacher of the Year online community for the U.S. Department of Education. Nancy is an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network through her leadership activities as a TLN regular blogger and mentor liaison for the University of Connecticut - Teachers for a New Era and IBM - Transition to Teaching Program.