California Institute of Integral Studies



The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is a private university in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1968. As of 2020, the institute operates in two locations: the main campus near the confluence of the Civic Center, SoMa, and Mission districts, and another campus for the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. As of 2020, CIIS has a total of 1,510 students and 80 core faculty members.

Although the institute has no official spiritual path, some of its historical roots lie among followers of the Bengali sage Sri Aurobindo. The term "Integral", in the school's name, refers to Aurobindo's Integral Yoga (purnayoga), here interpreted as the integration of mind, body, and spirit.

American Academy of Asian Studies (1951–1956)
The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) grew out of the earlier American Academy of Asian Studies, founded by Louis Gainsborough in 1951. Other early contributors to the founding of the academy include Frederic Spiegelberg. The academy was an independent educational institution set up to study Eastern culture and philosophy and improve the dialogue between east and west. Soon after the founding of the institution, Gainsborough was joined by Alan Watts and Haridas Chaudhuri, two persons that played a crucial role in the development of the academy's academic profile.

Both Watts and Chaudhuri were oriented towards Eastern religions and philosophy and integrated this into their teaching and colloquia. Watts, a teacher of Eastern mysticism, established the academy as a meeting place for counter-cultural movements, also known as the San Francisco Renaissance. Chaudhuri, a scholar of Aurobindo, developed the field of Integral counseling psychology, an integration of eastern philosophy with the growing field of counseling psychology. According to sources "Chaudhuri’s vision of integral education, like that of Alan Watts, was based on connecting the cultural traditions of the East and the West".

In addition to Watts, Chaudhuri, and Spiegelberg, others offering classes and special lectures at the Academy included C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, Judith Tyberg, Rom Landau, Saburo Hasegawa, G. P. Malalasekhara, and Gi-ming Shien. Graduate students included Michael Murphy and Dick Price, future cofounders of the Esalen Institute; 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.

By 1952 the Academy was in financial decline, after Gainsborough suffered serious business losses. For support and accreditation, the Academy entered into an agreement to serve as the graduate school of Asian studies for the College of the Pacific. Spiegelberg stepped down and focused on his work at Stanford, while Watts became head of the school and operated it on a shoestring budget for the next four years. But the conservative college administration became dissatisfied with Watts' leadership and pushed him out in 1956.

Due to Watts' departure a group of resident scholars led by Ananda Claude Dalenberg including Shien, Feng, and Snyder also left the Academy and founded an intentional community called East-West House. Kerouac's visits there too resulted in characters for his books. East-West House residents also included Knute Stiles, Joanne Kyger, and other leading artists, poets and writers of the Beat Generation interested in Asian thought, who would no longer see the Academy as a resource. This added to the financial strain on the school, which closed within the year.

Cultural Integration Fellowship (1957-)
Following the Academy's collapse, Chaudhuri and his wife Bina established the Cultural Integration Fellowship (CIF), which for many decades offered a place for meditation, learning, and events in a house on Fulton Street across from Golden Gate Park, in the Inner Richmond District of San Francisco.

CIF was founded on the ideals of Sri Aurobindo's integral philosophy and the practice of Integral Yoga, while the East-West House community maintained a connection with Watts, his Beat Zen, and later also Shunryū Suzuki and the San Francisco Zen Center. The Esalen Institute would feature seminars by both Chaudhuri and Watts. And it was at CIF in 1960 that the future Esalen cofounders, Murphy and Price, first met despite having both attended the Academy and Spiegelberg's lectures at Stanford in years past. Murphy had been 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.

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.

California Institute of Asian Studies (1968–1980)
In 1968, Chaudhuri was instrumental in 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.

In this period several developments took place. 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.

Frederic Spiegelberg, who helped found the predecessor American Academy of Asian Studies, served as the institute's second president, from 1976 to 1978.

California Institute of Integral Studies (1980–present)
In 1980 the Institute underwent a change of name, now emerging as the California Institute of Integral Studies.

In 1981, the institute was granted regional accreditation and became a member of the national community of colleges and universities. By the mid-eighties several academic programs were available, including the clinical psychology program, the counseling psychology program, and the East/West psychology program. Several new programs were also launched in the 1985–1986 academic year, including the organizational development program and transformation certificate program, and the external studies program. Other services, available to students at this time, included 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.

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.

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. In 2013 Jordan published a case report that summarized the experiences from the Integrative Wellness Coaching (IWC) project among homeless and low-income individuals in San Francisco. The IWC model was, at this time, included in the Master of Arts program in Integrative Health Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Philosophical background
Central to the early history of the institute is a model of so-called integral education. Originally set up to study Eastern culture and philosophy in the beginning of the 1950s, the Institute developed further in this direction with the arrival of Haridas Chaudhuri. Chaudhuri introduced the integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo as a navigating principle for education and established a perspective that sought a holistic view of the human being; an integration of material and spiritual values; as well as an integration of Eastern and Western philosophies and worldviews. By the mid-eighties this model of education was firmly established. In 1985 Voigt reported on the graduate programs at CIIS and elaborated on the experience of integral education at the institute. In the late 1990s, CIIS was one of several institutions in the United States associated with the study of Holism and Consciousness.

There is also a connection between the roots of CIIS and the Human Potential Movement. Among the students who attended the colloquia at the American Academy of Asian Studies in the 1950s was Michael Murphy and Dick Price, founders of the Esalen Institute at Big Sur. According to Gleig and Floress, "one can trace a direct line from Integral Yoga through [the Cultural Integration Fellowship] to two of the major centers of the Human Potential movement and the transpersonal psychology field it birthed: Esalen and California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)."

Gleig and Flores further explain that: "CIIS's distinctive signature is the development of an integral education that combines academic scholarship with spiritual transformation and through its student body, faculty publications, and popular public program it has significantly shaped contemporary East-West spiritualities. As with the other main creative lineage centers – Esalen and CIF – CIIS is committed to a pluralistic spiritual vision and its Aurobindo roots are somewhat hidden."

According to Jim Ryan, CIIS, as developed by the founder (Chaudhuri), "had a very wide academic reach, far beyond its basic East-West philosophy concentration. Theses and dissertations were done over many years on the politics, economics, anthropology, sociology, and area studies of many nations of the world."

Academics
CIIS consists of four schools: the School of Professional Psychology & Health, the School of Consciousness and Transformation (mainly humanities subjects), the School of Undergraduate Studies, and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM). ACTCM became the fourth school after merging with CIIS on July 1, 2015.

The institute offers interdisciplinary and cross-cultural graduate studies in psychology, counseling, philosophy, religion, cultural anthropology, transformative studies and leadership, integrative health, women's spirituality, and community mental health. Many courses combine mainstream academic curricula with a spiritual orientation, including influences from a broad spectrum of mystical or esoteric traditions.

Accreditation and exam pass rates
CIIS is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission. In addition, degrees offered through ACTCM are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine (ACAHM).

In 2018, The Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS), California's state regulatory agency responsible for licensing, examination, and enforcement of Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs), released statistics for its January 1, 2018 through June 30, 2018 exam cycle.


 * CIIS examinees' pass rate was 82% (Standard exam), compared with a 77% pass rate for all schools in California.
 * 83% of CIIS first-time Standard exam-takers passed, compared with an 80% pass rate for California schools overall.

The Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) program in Clinical Psychology is not accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA). The program received APA accreditation in 2003, but accreditation was revoked in 2011, and CIIS's appeal of the revocation was denied in 2012 on the basis that it was "not fully consistent with the Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation of Programs in Professional Psychology", notably "several requirements in the following areas: Domain B: Program Philosophy, Objectives, and Curriculum Plan; Domain C: Program Resources; Domain E: Student-Faculty Relations; Domain F: Program Self-Assessment and Quality Enhancement." CIIS applied for APA accreditation in June 2016, but voluntarily withdrew its application in June 2017.

Notable people

 * Angeles Arrien
 * Dave Carter
 * Haridas Chaudhuri
 * Allan Combs
 * Nadinne I. Cruz
 * Angela Davis
 * Stanislav Grof
 * Andrej Grubacic
 * Will Hall
 * Judith Hanson Lasater
 * Noah Levine
 * Joanna Macy
 * Robert A. McDermott
 * Chani Nicholas
 * Deborah Santana
 * Starhawk
 * Brian Swimme
 * Richard Tarnas
 * Judith Tyberg
 * Douglas Vakoch
 * Nick Walker
 * Alan Watts