My experience at U/Iowa, Annenberg at Penn, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Temple lead me to think that students (and likely all of us) read what they want to read in program descriptions. Even Temple which has an extensive production track has students who think that we don't give them enough. Annenberg, UNC and Iowa had/have two courses in production. The catalogs promised no more. Some of the catalogs went to great pains at accurate description. Usually to no avail. Each year I would find myself counseling students that they had made the wrong choice, if they were expecting to learn enough production to go out and face the cruel world. My guess is that many schools and faculties are conflicted on this point. Despite the real-world-economic-facts, they would like to do what they can't. We end up with dissatified students and faculty. What I'm saying is that students are not the only ones who would prefer film production courses to other things. The problem may be inherent in what it is we do. One cannot seriously understand film or television without understanding that they are constructions based on the work of several (many) people operating within technological and economic limitations. Film is not literature, despite what the English departments would have us believe. The easiest (maybe the only) way to learn this point is to have some experience in actual production. This is the only justification I know of for the two-course sequence in production. Yet I have had discussions with faculty colleagues at various schools who thought that we should expand the course offerings -- because the students wanted it they said -- when it was clear that some faculty members, for reasons of their own, preferred teaching production. Cal Pryluck <[log in to unmask]> Dept of Radio-Television-Film <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM> Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 voice (215) 247-9663)