Welcome to the website of the Center for Urban and Global Studies (CUGS) at Trinity College, officially inaugurated on October 19, 2007!  While this is only the second version of the site, which will be developed further and updated continuously, I would like to direct your attention to three features of the site that will give you a nice picture of what CUGS is all about.  First, you should focus on reading the Mission Statement page and then take a look at the respective pages of “Background and Rationale” and “Strategy and Benefits.”  This will give you a general sense of the core mission of CUGS, why it is created, and how it will work.  Second, if you go through the home pages for the various offices and programs under CUGS, you will see why and how CUGS brings these separate but closely related units under one roof and aims to have them work in sync to achieve an integrated urban-global mission.  While these units carry continued links to their older pages, they feature the new mission statements and their directors’ biographical sketches.  Third, read through the events page to see the programs and activities that CUGS is sponsoring or co-sponsoring.  I hope you will enjoy checking out our virtual home and send us your suggestions for improving the site via the “Contact Information” page.  More importantly, I hope you will be interested in participating in our current and future events and activities and will soon visit our physical home at 70 Vernon on Trinity campus.

Xiangming Chen

Dean and Director

Center for Urban and Global Studies

Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of

Sociology and International Studies

Trinity College

Hartford, Connecticut