 The Lazarsfeld and Thielens study had examined a sample of 2,451 social science faculty members.A second study, conducted in 1969 on behalf of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, was the first to be performed with a large survey sample, extensive questions about political views, and what Neil Gross characterized as highly rigorous analytic methods.The study was conducted in 1969 by political scientist Everett Carll Ladd and sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, who surveyed 60,000 academics in multiple fields of study at 303 institutions about their political views.