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. 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. Others offering classes and lectures 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; 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. 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. 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). 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. Professor Meg Jordan published a case report in 2013 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. In 2015 CIIS acquired the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM), but in 2021 following an external audit the CIIS Board of Trustees decided to close ACTCM by 2024. ==Philosophical background==