Little attention has been paid in composition journals and professional conferences to the practical problems associated with a writing program director's efforts to introduce an innovative composition curriculum within a traditional English department. A collaborative, problem solving approach to curriculum change is a practical way to proceed within the context of an established English department. Conflict between existing programs and recommended changes in those programs can be avoided if those involved in the change perceive the changes as addressing problems they themselves have identified and if the solutions recommended are not offered as panaceas but as the subject for experimentation and evaluation by the same group. The department of English at La Salle College (Philadelphia) became committed to a continuing evaluation of its writing program, to be monitored by a standing committee, through (1) circulation of a questionnaire to all of the faculty in the English department; (2) presentation of findings and recommendations to the faculty for approval; (3) selection of four textbooks representing several different approaches to teaching freshman composition; (4) development of a guide for teachers of freshman composition; and (5) the establishment of a series of workshops for freshman composition faculty. Such a process focused on the importance of convincing colleagues through their active participation in the process that the suggestions for both a change in objectives as well as teaching practices and course organization were related to the problems they perceived. (HOD)