California Institute of Integral Studies

American Academy of Asian Studies The original name, California Institute of Asian Studies, was inspired by the school's origins in the American Academy of Asian Studies (AAAS), founded 1951 by businessman Louis Gainsborough with Alan Watts an early participant. AAAS director Frederic Spiegelberg , a Stanford University professor and Aurobindo devotee, invited Indian philosophy professor and Aurobindo disciple Haridas Chaudhuri to the US, on the recommendation of Aurobindo himself. [ 2 ] Watts taught Buddhist , Taoist , and Hindu philosophy and religion, and established the AAAS as a meeting place for the countercultural movement known as the San Francisco Renaissance . Chaudhuri developed the field of integral counseling psychology, an integration of Indian philosophy with Western psychology. [ 3 ] Others offering classes and lectures included C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer , Judith Tyberg , Rom Landau , Saburo Hasegawa , G. P. Malalasekhara , and Gi-ming Shien . [ 4 ] Graduate students included Michael Murphy and Dick Price , future cofounders of the Esalen Institute ; Eugene Rose, the future Orthodox hieromonk Seraphim Rose ; Gia-Fu Feng , who translated Chinese classics for Watts and would go on to write bestselling translations of the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi ; and leading figures of the Beat Generation , including poet Gary Snyder . Price, Feng, and Snyder were among a core group of students that lived at the school. Jack Kerouac visited frequently, and based characters in The Dharma Bums on Watts and Snyder. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] By 1952 the AAAS was in financial decline, after Gainsborough suffered serious business losses. For support and accreditation, the AAAS entered into an agreement to serve as the graduate school of Asian studies for the College of the Pacific . Spiegelberg stepped down, whereupon Watts operated the school on a shoestring budget for the next four years. The conservative college administration, dissatisfied with Watts' leadership, pushed him out in 1956.

[ 4 ] [ 5 ] Due to Watts' departure, a group of resident scholars led by Ananda Claude Dalenberg and including Shien, Feng, and Snyder also left the AAAS to found an intentional community called East-West House . There too, Kerouac's visits inspired characters for his books. Residents included Knute Stiles , Joanne Kyger , and other artists, poets and writers of the Beat Generation. Their lack of interest in the Academy added to the financial strain on the school, which closed within the year. [ 4 ] [ 6 ] [ 5 ]

Following the collapse of the AAAS, Chaudhuri and his wife Bina established the Cultural Integration Fellowship (CIF), an educational and meditation center based in a house on Fulton Street (across from Golden Gate Park, in the Inner Richmond District), and devoted to Aurobindo's integral philosophy and the practice of Integral Yoga. Meanwhile, the East-West House community maintained a connection with Watts, his Beat Zen, and later also Shunryū Suzuki and the San Francisco Zen Center . [ 7 ] [ 6 ] Esalen Institute would feature seminars by both Chaudhuri and Watts. Esalen cofounders Murphy and Price first met at the CIF in 1960, despite both having previously attended the AAAS, and Spiegelberg's lectures at Stanford. Murphy had lived at the Sri Aurobindo ashram in India from June 1956 to October 1957, and was now living, meditating, and studying at the CIF house, where he invited Price to room with him. Within a year they established what would become Esalen Institute in Big Sur. [ 7 ] [ 6 ] The Cultural Integration Fellowship developed an education branch that would evolve into a separate institution, while CIF itself would continue as a meditation, learning, and event center at the same location on Fulton Street well into the twenty-first century. [ 3 ]

In 1968, Chaudhuri led the founding and development of a new institution called the California Institute of Asian Studies, which grew out of the education branch of the Cultural Integration Fellowship and built upon the experience of the former American Academy of Asian Studies. Paul Herman continued the work of Chaudhuri and also designed the institute's first graduate degree in Integral Psychology, the Integral Counseling Psychology (ICP) degree, which was established in 1973. Spiegelberg served as the institute's second president, from 1976 to 1978. [ 3 ] [ 8 ] In 1980 the Institute changed its name to the California Institute of Integral Studies, and was granted regional accreditation the following year. By the mid-1980s, available programs included clinical psychology, counseling psychology, and East/West psychology. Further programs in organizational development, external studies, and a transformation certificate program were launched in 1985–1986. Around this time, CIIS acquired an extensive library as well as the Integral Counseling Center, a community-based service facility that supported the training needs of clinical and counseling students. Obadiah S. Harris served as school president for a few years before succeeding Manly P. Hall as president of the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles (serving there 1990–2017). [ 8 ] In 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that psychology students at the New College of California were transferring to the California Institute of Integral Studies, due to the closing of the former institution. [ 9 ] In 2012, CIIS, with support from the Aetna Foundation, announced that it was introducing its new onsite Health and Wellness Coaching program to San Francisco's Mid-Market District. The program was to be of benefit to children and families living at 10th & Mission Family Housing, a supportive housing project run by Mercy Housing California.