Established in 1955, the Monterey Institute of International Studies at Soka University of America (MIIS), formerly known as the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), and the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies (MIFS), located in Monterey, California, is a graduate institute and satellite campus of Soka University of America. For brevity, it is often referred to as simply the Monterey Institute. The cofounders of the institute were Gaspard Etienne Weiss, Louise Weiss, Dwight Morrow Jr., Remsen Dubois Bird, Enid Hamilton-Fellows, Countess of Kinnoull, Sybil Fearnley, Noël Sullivan, and Frank Elton. The institute offers master's degree programs and certificates.
MIIS has been the official supplier of translators and interpreters to the Olympic Games since the 1984 Summer Olympics.Santa Fe New Mexican. Newspaper Archives. October 15, 1990. Page 35 Professors and alumni have also served as Chief interpreters and Chief translators for Olympic Games around the world since 1984. MIFS was the 2nd-ever school in the United States to establish a training program in Translation and Interpretation (T&I), following George Washington University by only 8 years. MIFS was the first, and for over a decade the only, school in the United States with a program in conference interpretation. MIFS was the first-ever school based in the United States to train translators and interpreters for work at the United Nations and the United Nations Interpretation Service, prior to which all were trained abroad. MIIS is today also the last remaining school of conference interpretation for three Asian languages left in the United States. MIIS is presently the only school in the United States under a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations to provide training for UN language officials.
In August 2025, Middlebury College President Ian Baucum announced in a video that due to budgetary considerations and declining enrollment, MIIS will cease operation of its residential translation and interpreting graduate programs in June 2027. Some of its online programs as well as its self-sustaining research centers will remain in operation under the Middlebury College umbrella. In May 2026, Soka University of America announced that they were in discussions with Middlebury College to purchase the MIIS campus and some of its academic programs. In August 2026, the purchase went through.
History
The Creation of the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies (1953-1955) During the planning stages of the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies (MIFS), attitudes on the Monterey Peninsula reflected the era: it was the height of the Cold War, and the area was a center of military and espionage activity. Only ten years before, the United Nations Charter had been signed in San Francisco, in the presence of a number of persons who would be affiliated with the Institute.
The Institute's founders came from an array of espionage and military backgrounds. MIFS was established as the brainchild of Gaspard Etienne Weiss, who in the early 1950s was employed by the Sixth Army as chairman of the French Department at the Army Language School, located at the Presidio of Monterey, which crests a hilltop overlooking the Monterey Peninsula. In 1952 Weiss and his wife Louise were the subjects of gossip that shook the Language School; the 6th Army Command investigated rumors that during World War II they may have fed intelligence to the Nazis during their service as propagandists for the French Interior Minister.Long Beach Independent Press Telegram (December 7, 1952) Newspaper Archives. Pp. 14 In 1953 they were transferred to the languages department at Robert Louis Stevenson High School (RLSH) in Pebble Beach, California.Yearbook (1958) Robert Louis Stevenson High School. Pebble Beach, California. pp. 13 Weiss taught Latin, and Louise taught French.
The German teacher at RLSH was Sybil Fearnley, who had graduated shortly before the outbreak of the war from Berlin University, in English and the teaching of German to foreigners. The Weisses and Sybil Fearnley had many conversations about developing a postgraduate school on the Monterey Peninsula.
Two experts in pedagogy and the development, management, and operation of modern universities who were involved in establishing the school were Remsen Dubois Bird and Dwight Morrow Jr.. Remsen Bird had been the youngest President of Occidental College, seeing that College through the Great Depression and both World Wars. Morrow, the son of the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and brother-in-law of Charles Lindbergh, was a world-renowned educator. He had convinced Weiss to move to California. Bird became the founding Chairman of the Board; there is a bust of him in the lobby at McCone Hall. Morrow served with him on the Board for many years, even while taking a teaching position on the East Coast.
Frank Elton was a South-African-born British diplomat living in Carmel Valley, associated with the British General Consulate in San Francisco.San Mateo Times. Newspaper Archives. April 6, 1966. Page 55 He was also involved in managing the San Francisco chapter of the World Affairs Council, until he oversaw the 1955 establishment of a new chapter of the organization in the Monterey Bay Area. His position as head of the British Economic Service in San Francisco allowed the Institute to quickly develop a connection with the business world. He became an educator at MIFS while also serving as president of the British-American Council for Economic Affairs in San Francisco and participating in elite men's clubs in that city.Oakland Tribune. Newspaper Archives. April 26, 1974. Page 23
Though Morrow and Elton had mad large donations to the Institute, two primary financial backers were the Countess of Kinnoull and Noël Sullivan. Kinnoull had been involved in the Catholic Nationalist movement during the Spanish Civil War as the official press photographer for the Vatican and for Francisco Franco. She had spied on communists in France for MI6 shortly before fleeing the country in 1940, settling in the United States, and becoming a large philanthropic donor throughout the area of Monterey and Carmel. Speaking several languages herself, she was keen on seeing California become a center of civilian language instruction. Sullivan, who had also established the Carmel Music Society, died of a heart attack about a year into the success of its first program.
The primary desire of the Institute's founders was to create a spinoff of the kinds of language instruction at the Presidio, but for civilian students, with a different style of language immersion than any other program's.Bakersfield Californian. Newspaper Archives. November 17, 1979. Page 88 They did not want the program to be one where "the book is on the table."
Summer Language Seminars (1955-1961) When the doors of MIFS opened in on June 9, 1955, there were 13 students, and the only two subjects taught that year were in the languages and cultures of French and German. The initial programs, called "Summer Seminars," were intensive summer language programs, held annually, for students currently attending other universities. What separated this program from those of other similar programs of the era, such as the summer language programs at Middlebury College, was that the programs here were not designed to be only those of language instruction, but were also structured to teach courses on foreign cultures and areas exclusively in that language.Stanford Daily. Newspaper Archives. April 18, 1958. Page 2 By the fourth year of the program in 1958, the languages offered had evolved to include Italian, Spanish, and Russian. Remsen Bird, in a letter to the CIA director Allen Dulles in 1958, wrote that the institute was "directed to the job of teaching languages for use and the understanding of the other civilizations."
An advertisement appearing in The Stanford Daily recruiting students for the fourth annual summer session reads:"The courses are presented exclusively in the language of each country by native-born instructors. In addition, the institute offers a workshop for the teaching of French and Spanish in elementary grades. Comparative History, Comparative Law and Government, and International Economics comprise an integrated approach to understanding the socio-economic and political structure of the Western world. Courses in Asiatic Civilization are also offered."When the institute started these programs, it had no permanently owned buildings, only a post office box, and held its summer courses in buildings in the area of Monterey County. When it began in 1955, it occupied 4 rooms at the Monterey Peninsula College, and lectures that year were held in the Theatre-in-the-Round, in the city of Carmel, located roughly 5 miles away from downtown Monterey, on the other side of the Monterey Peninsula.Farr, Sam. (June 2, 1989) "A Memorial Resolution Relative to memorializing GASPARD ETIENNE WEISS." Members Resolution No. 1432. Twenty-eighth Assembly District, State of California. After its first year, the institute was housed mainly at the Mission of San Carlos Borromeo, also in Carmel. Students lived in small group "dormitories," often in groups as small as 10 students and often with an instructor living in the building.Idaho Falls Post Register. Newspaper Archives. October 8, 1961. Page 22 The instructors lived in the buildings to ensure that only the language of instruction was spoken during the length of the summer.
Despite the fact that at this initial stage they had no official campus and were only a summer language program, the vision of the institute founders was indeed that the institute would become a true graduate professional center with a core focus and mission dedicated to programs beyond their core classes of language instruction and cultural understanding. Throughout the second half of the 1950s, as the Chair of the Board, Remsen Bird started forming relationships with other universities and nongovernmental institutions to convince their leadership to start sending students to the summer programs. Included in this relationship were representatives of the Christian Science Monitor and the University of California, Berkeley. By 1960, the institute was offering an 11-week beginners course in languages that lasted 5 hours a day for 6 days a week.Stanford Daily. Newspaper Archives. May 27, 1960. Page 6
Period of expansion (1961-1979)
1961 saw the introduction of year-round degree programs taught at MIFS. The first building that the institute acquired was the Barnet J. Segal Building, also known as the Old Monterey Carnegie Library building, which was originally the city's public library. The institute was soon accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, categorized as a "Liberal Arts Institution."Stanford Daily. Newspaper Archives. February 24, 1965. Page 2 Samuel Finley Brown Morse was instrumental in the purchase, underwriting the school's loan to buy the building. As President of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, Morse also arranged for the distribution of major grant funds to the school for investments and expansion.