University teacher educators in physical education play a critical role in preparing physical educators for the 21st century, in turn influencing millions of school children across the nation. An awareness of the professional characteristics of Physical Education Teacher Educators (PETEs) will assist in a better understanding of the distinctiveness of this group. The purpose of this study was to survey PETEs to identify their defining professional characteristics based on the institution type in which they were employed, and the institution's classification according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (CCIHE) published in 1994. The CCIHE classifications used in this study were: Research Universities I (RI), Research Universities II (RII), Doctoral Universities I (DI), Masters Comprehensive I (MI), Masters Comprehensive II (MII), Baccalaureate Colleges I (BI), Baccalaureate Colleges II (BII), Associates of Arts Colleges (AA), and Specialized Institutions (SI). PETEs numbering 1252, from 599 institutions, were contacted to complete a comprehensive online survey to identify their characteristics. In this study their work preference, work responsibility and professional involvement were examined. Double blind measures were taken to assure no bias in data processing. Respondents numbered 461 which constituted a 42% return rate. The survey consisted of 43 questions. Data obtained from responses were utilized to run descriptive statistics by CCIHE. Two classifications, AA and SI institutions, were not included in the analysis because these groups were represented by only one participant respectively To determine significant differences among CCIHE one way ANOVAs were utilized. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were employed with CCIHE as the factor to determine significant differences at an alpha level of .05. No significant differences were found in the work responsibility of the advising undergraduate students (p=.098). Neither were significant differences found between the amounts of money raised by external grants across CCIHE classification (p=.901), however significant differences were found in the number of external grants written between CCIHE classifications (p=.003). Further, there were significant differences among numerous other characteristics such as: time in research (p=.000), time in teaching (p=.000), research in the past five years (p=.000), overall grant writing (p=.007), teaching undergraduate students (p=.000), university service (p=.000), and advising graduate students (p=.000). These findings imply what is often assumed, that the work of teacher educators generally varies according to classification and type institution in which they were employed. Keyword(s): leadership development, physical education PK-12, professional preparation