ABSTRACT
There was a stronger and more purely scholarly motivation driven by the long standing interest of one of the authors in intellectuals as an important and peculiar group of people or social type. If indeed a cardinal attribute of intellectuals is a questioning disposition then intellectuals critical of the regnant conventional wisdoms on the campuses are often among the supporters of NAS. While making allowances for the tendency of most human beings to characterize themselves in favorable rather than unfavorable ways, the types of self-identification provided are congruent with active participation in NAS. It requires being a nonconformist, a social critic, a good citizen being public spirited and a willingness to take risk. While the supporters of NAS are a widely disparate group the tentative portrait of a typical member suggests that he is predominantly white, male, older-middle aged, socially mobile, well-educated and well-published, and that he teaches in the humanities and social sciences.
