Little is known about best practices for effectively developing and mentoring new music therapy faculty as they transition to the complex ecology of higher education. To address this gap, three new music therapy faculty explored their lived experiences as participant-researchers in a collective autoethnography designed to synthesize their perspectives into a shared, comprehensive story. Over the 2017–2018 academic year, data were collected from personal journals and focus groups interweaving individual and collective narratives and qualitatively analyzed via restorying, domain and taxonomic analysis, and inductive semantic thematic analysis. Forty-two total domains, or cultural categories, were identified and then consolidated into six primary themes: student relations, evaluation, self-preservation, competence, challenges, and colleague relations. Primary themes were further distilled into three composite themes – fulfillment, success, and identity—that participant-researchers experienced as aspirational goals that were critical for professional development yet difficult to conceptualize and achieve. The narrative stage of rising action reflected participant-researchers’ aspirations to feel fulfilled, achieve success, and develop identity while contending with limited insight, guidance or direction. The findings provide foundational knowledge for future scholarship examining best practices for training and mentoring new faculty.

在过渡到复杂的高等教育生态学过程中，对于有效开发和指导新音乐治疗系教师的最佳实践知之甚少。为了解决这一差距，三名新的音乐治疗学院的教师探索了他们作为集体民族志的参与者研究者的生活经历，该研究旨在将他们的观点综合成一个共享的，全面的故事。在2017-2018学年，数据是从个人期刊和焦点小组收集的，这些个人期刊和个人叙事交织在一起，并通过还原，领域和分类学分析以及归纳语​​义主题分析进行定性分析。确定了总共42个领域或文化类别，然后将其合并为六个主要主题：学生关系，评估，自我保护，能力，挑战和同事关系。主要主题被进一步提炼为三个综合主题-成就，成功和认同-参与者研究人员将这些主题视为对职业发展至关重要但难以概念化和实现的理想目标。的叙事阶段不断上升的行动反映了参与者研究者渴望获得满足，取得成功和发展个性的渴望，同时在有限的洞察力，指导或方向下竞争。研究结果为将来的奖学金提供了基础知识，以研究培训和指导新教师的最佳实践。