During the last four years, the English Department at Idaho State University embarked on an ambitious program of change in their writing program. The English Department established a cross-curricular writing course as a new, required course to bridge the gap between the freshman and junior years; a remedial writing course as a new, required course for those students who need a writing course before the freshman writing course; and sets of guidelines for the freshman writing course and for the junior-level required writing courses (business, technical, and literature). The Graduate Studies Committee (within the English department) set in place a new mentor program for teaching assistants. New guidelines for the use of computer classrooms were established and assumptions about the teaching of composition as a whole were reexamined. Guidelines for new courses are formulated by the composition committee, a process which may take years. Guidelines are quite specific: they describe the goals for the course, establish its content and the skills the students will learn, and detail the kinds of documents to be produced, the kinds of reading materials to be used, the policies concerning attendance, plagiarism, and so on. The slow process of change often results in compromise; the faculty find themselves negotiating with reluctant faculty members within the department and with an often reluctant administrator. (A figure indicating the overall structure of the writing courses is attached.) (RS)