Hankins points out that the intellectual historians of the department have traditionally been an "elite group."
He said that last year, four out of six summa designations were given to degree candidates in intellectual history.
The academic rigor of intellectual history has attracted students not concentrating in history.
Kloppenberg says students in his class, History 1661: "Social Thought in Modern America," came from a wide range of concentrations and took the class for many different reasons.
"For none of those people was intellectual history something new," he says. "It appeals primarily to students who want to see how material they have learned in other courses fits together. But it can be useful regardless of their interests.