Faculty beliefs about educational purpose and the nature of their academic field strongly influence how they plan introductory courses. Significantly different conceptions of educational purpose among faculty in different fields may inhibit agreement on plans for curricular coherence and ways of communicating expectations to students. Interviews with 89 faculty members teaching in diverse colleges and representing eight fields also identified faculty attention to student preparation, available textbooks, and locally important factors, but little attention to alternative instructional strategies during course planning. The development of a tentative general model of course design and related questions to guide future study, based on the findings, is discussed. Nine tables of data from the interviews are appended, as is a schematic of the contextual filters model of course design. Contains 25 references. (Author/KM)