California Institute of Integral Studies

California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is a private, non-profit university founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently 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 Medicine in Potrero Hill neighborhood. CIIS has a total of 1,510 students and 80 core faculty members.

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 1st, 2015.

Many courses combine mainstream academic curriculum with a spiritual orientation, including influences from a broad spectrum of mystical or esoteric traditions. Although the Institute has no official spiritual path, some of its historical roots lie among followers of the Bengali sage Sri Aurobindo.

The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) was founded in 1968 in San Francisco, California.

CIIS was characterized as a major center of the Human Potential movement. According to Gleig and Floress (2013), "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 the 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.