Our website, http://www.cuac.org/, contains a lot of useful resources and information. However, unless you know that they are there, you may not be able to find them! That’s why I’d like to outline the content of our website and how you can make the most of it. Finding information on our website has never been easier. We have a Search option (it appears on the bottom of the front page and on the left (blue) menu bar on all the other pages); and it’s a powerful search engine indeed, it’s Google. Another handy orientation tool is the SiteMap that outlines the contents of the website. Yet another, and perhaps, the most important tool to get around is the left menu (the vertical blue bar on the left side of your screen). Not only does it tell you what "department" or section of our website you are browsing (e.g. CUAC News or Publications), but also tells you what are the units of the "department" that you are browsing (in case of Publications, we have three, our Monthly Newsletter, our bi-annual newsletter Compass Points and our annual magazine Prologue). Furthermore, by using the left (blue) menu bar you can get back to our homepage or to a unit of the current section (e.g. Compass Points) or to switch to another section altogether (e.g. About Us).

These tips (or self-evident facts, depending on your expertise), should help you successfully navigate through the vast array of resources on the website. Let me outline some of them, following the order of the left bar menu. For your convenience, the titles of the menu items are underlined. I believe that if you walk through the website with me, which should take just a few minutes, you will discover a lot of new information.

The first item, About Us, has self-explanatory subsections, Contact Us (detailed contact information), a Message from General Secretary, CUAC Mission, a brief CUAC History, and the current list of CUAC Trustees.

The next section, Our Members, is full of information. Besides general Membership Information (kinds of memberships and what they entail), it contains detailed Profiles of CUAC Institutions (detailed information on the institution, such as academic degrees, programmes, housing, exchange opportunities and even campus pictures) sorted by continent and country (Africa, Americas, Asia and Australia – all are represented). If you reviewed the profile of your institution and found that some information is not up-to-date, then the next subsection is for you: Update a Profile! It provides you with a downloadable update form that you can fill in and email/mail to CUAC – I will make sure that the update makes its way to the website in a timely manner. To keep this website updated we need your help!

Historically, CUAC grew out of the Association of Episcopal Colleges (AEC). That is why the next item on the menu is Episcopal Colleges. It’s a sort of miniature version of CUAC website, as in the left bar it contains links to the directory of AEC Board of Directors, to AEC History and Mission, and to AEC Member Profiles (there are eleven Colleges and Universities, nine of which are US-based; they are also CUAC members and their profiles are also found among CUAC Member Profiles). Finally, there is a link to the information on AEC scholarship, Charitable Service Scholarship.

As CUAC is getting more involved with the Theological stream, an initiative to establish a global network of the Anglican Theological Schools, the next item of the menu is Theological Schools. The structure of this section is similar to that of CUAC members. Here you have a brief description of Theological School Network and Profiles of the Theological Schools (at the moment, this includes contact information for the vast majority of the Theological Schools and Seminaries of the Anglican Communion (AC); the list is organized by the Province of the AC; only a few seminaries, the ones that returned CUAC questionnaires have the detailed profile published). Finally, this section offers an opportunities to Submit Profile of a Theological School.

CUAC is a network that aims to facilitate exchanges and cooperation among its members. That is why the next section is about Exchange and Networking. It starts with our "Bulletin Board," with some institutions offering (We Offer) their expertise, scholarships etc, and others asking for help (We Need: books, exchange, distance education etc). Visiting this section may prove worthwhile. If you would like to post a request or an announcement in the Bulletin Board, please send me an email to that effect (office@cuac.org). Besides, this section contains general information (such as proposal format, ideas, etc) on Faculty Exchange, Student Exchange and International Education. Recently, there were a number of exchange projects in the framework of CUAC, e.g. students from Renison College (Canada) studying (and teaching, too) at Poole Gakuin University (Japan). There are many opportunities, and we will find a way to help you find them. Our website is a handy tool to that end.

TheCUAC Triennial Conference in June 2005 was a celebration of the spirit of the international education based on the ideals of Anglicanism. In the Conference-2005 section you will find most of theConference Presentations and Papers, a Conference Summary, Conference Photoalbum (those pictures sometimes communicate more than the words!) and the Report of the General Secretary (you may notice that some of the pictures and materials are also available from the home page of our website).

The next section, News and Events, is also partially covered on the front page: there you have the main News (however, in the News and Events/What’s New in CUAC? you have an additional subsection, In Other News). And then, predictably, you have a list of Upcoming Events, many of which are also advertised on the front page, in the right (red) column, Announcements. By the way, as far as "blue" and "red" columns are concerned, they have nothing to do with blue or red states or the colors of the American flag (or English or French or Russian or Serbian flag, for that matter). However, they have everything to do with the color scheme of the Compass Rose, which is an indispensable part of CUAC symbolic.

The Publications section, that I had mentioned earlier, contains online version of our publications (including this newsletter). You will find there our Monthly Newsletter (starting with the September 2005 issue), bi-annual Compass Points (starting with the Spring 2005 issue), and the magazine Prologue (starting with the 2005 issue).

Finally, the Links section is self-explanatory. Here you will find links to a number of useful educational, Anglican and Anglican educational resources. And the Search as well as the Site Map sections are self-explanatory (yet they may be very helpful!).

To conclude, maintaining a website such as http://www.cuac.org/ is not easy, because a lot of information needs to be processed, sorted, nicely published and then regularly updated. However, CUAC believes that this time and effort is worth it because the website offers a unique opportunity for communication and networking, which cannot be matched by paper publications (the volume to contain all the information on the website would probably take thousands of pages!) or snail mail. We do want you and your colleagues to have this valuable and effective tool and to be able to use it to advance international exchanges, cooperation and other international education programmes. Yet, to do so we need your help. Please visit our website, let us know what you think, what would make it more useful for you. If your institution is a CUAC member, let us know if its profile needs to be updated (and how). And finally, stay in touch! In fact, a new tool to keep CUAC community connected is ready to be used. We have set up the CUAC listserve, an email discussion list. To subscribe, you don’t have to be a CUAC member. If you would like to subscribe or if you have questions, please drop me a line at office@cuac.org. And you should be able soon to subscribe to the discussion group on the website; which is why the website is always a work in progress. I hope this article will help you to make the best of our website. Happy surfing! And Merry Christmas! (& Happy New Year!)