"By the late '70s, everyone was preparing for careers and everyone focused on that," Keyes laments. "In the '60s there was much more of an intellectual focus at the universities.

"Every society needs institutions that turn out generalists, not careerist, who wrestle and have an ability to wrestle with moral, political and philosophical questions," he adds. "Harvard should be one of those institutions. But I wonder if it still is anymore."

With his Harvard doctorate in hand, Keyes traveled to India as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. There he met two of the most influential women in his life: Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick and his future wife, Jocelyn.

Keyes encountered Kirkpatrick at a foreign-affairs seminar in Bombay and found himself siding with her on issues time and again. Kirkpatrick later appointed him ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, where he served from 1983 to 1985. Keyes then served for two years as assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs.

In 1988 and 1992, Keyes ran unsuccessfully for the Senate against Democrats in Maryland. His second attempt was derailed in part from the disclosure that Keyes had paid himself $8,500 per month from campaign contributions. The payments were legal, but apparently unprecedented in the state's political history, and Keyes had not immediately disclosed them.

In between Senatorial races, Keyes was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute--a conservative Washington think tank--and served as president of Citizens Against Public Waste. He also substituted as an interim president of Alabama A&M University.

Keyes was born in New York City in 1951, the son of a career Army officer and a homemaker. As Army families often do, Keyes' lived a nomadic existence, wandering across the southeastern states and all the way through Italy.

"When I got to college, it was the first time I'd ever met anyone who was born and raised in the same town," Keyes says. "Moving a lot helped get me used to acquiring new friends and [adjusting] to changing circumstances. It also made me more attached to my basic family."

As a youngster, Keyes attended Catholic schools during most of his formative years. The time spent under religious discipline has shaped Keyes' views on faith and education, he says.

"[Catholic schooling] gave me a good grounding in discipline and respect, both in learning and in life," Keyes says. "I never felt a disconnect from religious life and education."

Keyes has three children and lives with his wife in Montgomery County, Md.

--George T. Hill contributed to the reporting of this article.