We each make decisions about how to guide our programs within the context of our respective institutions, and this has given Los Angeles programs a diverse identity that is very healthy. We live in a time when state-funded universities are struggling to survive in the face of declining public support and rapidly rising expenses. This white paper has undertones of “poor me, we don't get it” with no mention of how landscape architecture might relate to this transition of public universities. There are those of us who have been around long enough to have a sense, or sometimes at least an opinion as to why we are having trouble "supporting otherwise qualified design faculty." Several decades ago, early professional degree programs proliferated like rabbits. There were many good explanations for this trend, but few people were willing to discuss what impact this might have on the profession, especially in academia. Now we are reaping the product of that sowing. Our candidate pool for faculty positions is predominantly comprised of individuals with a professional bachelor's degree in landscape architecture at the master's level. It is difficult to explain to an administrator, with a scientific background, how an individual can acquire professional skills in this discipline in three years, that the resulting degree is also the terminal degree, and that this individual is prepared to carry out research that will add to the body of knowledge of discipline. I doubt this white paper can compare or balance such qualifications with faculty in other fields who have a bachelor's, master's, and PhD followed by post-doc experience before joining a faculty to teach and do research. Architecture and fine arts distinguish b...... center of paper ...... should consider what he wants to be when he grows up. Do we want to be service-based and feed the profession at the office level or do we want to be science-based and feed the body of knowledge? It is not certain that we will be able to continue to do both for a long time under the current system, regardless of accreditation standards. Forces far beyond our control, universities and state legislatures, will do it for us if we don't start making decisions for ourselves. Regardless of whether we allow it or do so, the issue of promotion and tenure will be controversial, and the issue of fairness of promotion and tenure between science faculty and studio faculty is so far off the radar screen that it is not even remotely a consideration in the scheme of things. Address the problem, not the symptoms. In the words of Daniel Burnham: “Don't make small plans.”