Schools, Monterey

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Favorite thing: There are two distinct areas of Monterey that have held the name, "the Presidio of Monterey". The Presidio of Monterey was founded by Spanish Missionaries in 1770, and it consisted of a walled town in what is now Historic Old Monterey. The only surviving building from the original Presidio is the Royal Presidio Chapel, America's oldest continually used cathedral.

The US Army's modern-day compound called the Presidio of Monterey is on the hillside next to the site of the original Spanish Presidio. The only major Spanish site on the modern Presidio was a fortified defensive position overlooking the harbor called the castillon. When General Edward Otho Cresap Ord was a lieutenant in 1847, he arrived in Monterey (with then-Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman) and built Fort Mervine which became the Presidio of Monterey.

The modern Presidio houses the Defense Language Institute, the largest language training school on the globe helping to make Monterey the "language capital of the world."

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Favorite thing: The US Navy's institute for higher learning, Naval Postgraduate School awards just under 2,000 Master's degrees each year in areas such as international studies, information technology, engineering, and public policy.

NPS sits on a historic site in Monterey--the grounds of the former Del Monte Hotel. The Del Monte Hotel was established in 1880 and was long considered on e of the finest luxury hotels in America. In 1942, the owners sold the property to the US Navy, and the area was initially used as a flight school...by 1947 it was decided the overcrowded Naval Postgraduate School in Annapolis need a new home, so it was moved to Monterey and opened in 1951. The original Pebble Beach 17 Mile Drive began and ended here at the Del Monte Hotel.

The Monterey County Weekly "Best Of 2006 Readers' Picks" named the Naval Postgraduate School as the best Place to Work in Monterey County!

www.nps.edu

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Favorite thing: Monterey Institute of International Studies is a graduate school of international studies in downtown Monterey. MIIS (pronounced by locals as "miss"), offers degrees in international relations, international business and languages, similar programs as the military offers at the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute, also in Monterey. MIIS, which is affiliated with Middlebury College in Vermont, also runs the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Tuition is reasonable at about $13,000 per semester. MIIS's language programs help Monterey earn the nickname "language capital of the world."

The front of the school is along Pacific Street, but it is spread over a four-block area along Pierce and Van Buren Streets, between Franklin and Jefferson. Interestingly, the school occupies some of Monterey's historic buildings such as the Lara Soto Adobe (c1830s), the Simoneau House (1905), the Segal Building (1913), the Craig Building (1930s), and the Kinnoull House (1930s).

Phone: 831-647-4100
Website: http://www.miis.edu
Address: 460 Pierce Street, Monterey, CA

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Favorite thing: Located on Fremont Street at the edge of Old Town Monterey is the Monterey Peninsula College. This community college is one of 109 colleges in the California Community College System, and has an enrollment of around 17,000 including students from 46 foreign countries. MPC students receive priority consideration for transfer to the 10 University of California and 23 California State University campuses. Founded in 1947, average tuition at MPC is around $14,000 per year.

MPC has nine sports for men and women including baseball, basketball, track, volleyball, tennis, softball, golf, football, and cross country; they compete in the Coast Conference.

MPC is also home to one of Monterey's weekly farmers' markets.

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Favorite thing: We moved to Norfolk VA in 1961, and Bob flew anti-submarine planes off of carriers at various location in the Atlantic. By the end of 1963 we had two young daughters.

Then he was sent to California. We were in the Monterey area for the only time Bob had a duty station on the west coast becaise he got an appointment to the U.S. Navy Post Graduate School. Admissions is very selective and is restricted to military officers and civilians that work for the Department of Defense.

The school is still active and 176 students graduated in March 2006. Although it is not a tourist attraction, it was one of the main facts of life for us between 1964 and 1966. The building pictured is the old Del Monte hotel

http://www.nps.navy.mil/nps/admin.htm

Fondest memory: We had a wonderful time visiting local attractions, and traveling throughout nearby California.

Unfortunately the Vietnam war was heating up around this time, and the powers that be decided to take most of the pilots (of which Bob was one), pull them from their studies and send them back to the fleet.

Bob was flying anti-submarine planes, and there wasn't much call for that in Vietnam, but that didn't make any difference.

So our next stop was Key West.

Fondest memory: I spent 14 months here in an intensive, 40-hour per week Czech language program. This was the view from my room on base.