The study reported in this paper is the first phase of a projected multi-phase, multi-year inquiry designed to explain how professors think about, and go about, teaching. This preliminary phase examined the attitudes of 15 faculty members in 5 disciplines (anthropology, English, history, mathematics, and psychology) toward the teaching aspects of his/her position. Interviews were conducting using a protocol of seven open-ended questions: (1) how did you become a college professor? (2) what kind of preparation did you have for teaching in higher education? (3) how did you come to teach as you do and what person do you use as a model or try to emulate? (4) how do you prepare for class? (5) what do you most want to achieve in your teaching of students? (6) how do you know whether or not you have been successful in achieving those ends? and (7) how do you feel about teaching? A major finding was that each of the professors interviewed held one of four different paradigms of teaching--transmission of information; communication with students; "doing" the discipline; and personal development. Paradigm choice had no necessary relationship to disciplines studied. Across paradigms, professors differed in the methods they used, their attitudes toward students, and in whether or not, or how much, they enjoyed teaching. Contains 23 references. (DB)