Monterey Receives $4.5 million From Developer’s Estate

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) has received a $4.5 million gift from the estate of Samuel F.B. Morse, a conservationist and developer. Morse founded the area now known as Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula.

The donation is the largest that MIIS has received. 

After the recent passing of Morse’s longest-living child, Mary Morse Osborne Shaw, Morse’s trust was divided between three educational institutions, including his alma mater Yale University and two schools located on the Monterey peninsula, the Stevenson School and MIIS. 

Morse was an early supporter of MIIS, and worked throughout his life to support education with an international and foreign language focus. 

While MIIS has known of the bequest since Morse’s death in 1969, the amount remained unknown until the gift was recently divided. 

There are no restrictions or conditions on how exactly this money should be used, but according to Jeff Dayton-Johnson, dean of MIIS & vice president for academic affairs, they plan to integrate it into its endowment so that it will contribute to student support and their educational experiences. 

“My priorities are very much in line with President Patton’s,” Dayton-Johnson said in an interview. 

“Number one is support for students, that includes financial aid to offset the cost of their tuition, but also support for programs that our students do here, just as undergraduates do at Middlebury, where they will spend a semester or a year at one of our cites abroad or doing field research or doing an internship-like opportunity,” he said.

Dayton-Johnson also plans to use the money for faculty development.

As resources increase, he hopes that this will encourage collaboration and further connection of faculty and students between MIIS and the undergraduate college. 

“What we have found is that to have third or fourth year undergraduates here in our classes is tremendously successful,” Dayton-Johnson said. 

“Our classes are pretty mixed in terms of age and disciplinary background and professional background,” he said. “And so if a few current Midd kids are thrown in there, they do great and they add a lot to the process.”

Bill Burger, vice president for communications and chief marketing officer at the college, also hopes for a greater connection between the schools in order to fully take advantage of the opportunities the college and MIIS have to offer.

MIIS has been steadily recovering from previous financial problems, and this gift will aid to further its recovery.

“This kind of a gift most definitely helps to strengthen the financial liability of the institute, and it is important for us to diversify the sources of revenue for academic programming,” Dayton-Johnson said.  

“The principle source of revenue here, as it is at the college, is what students pay to be here,” he said. “And while that will always be true, to the extent that we can increase the inflow of resources whether from gifts like this or grants that sponsor research, the better we are.”