This year's instructors of the Sustainability Gateway Course SUS 20010, Phil Sakimoto and Laura Walls, would like to invite you all to join us on Friday, May 5, 9-11 a.m., for our end-of-the-year SNEAK PREVIEW of the DVT program Let There Be Light, followed by a reception (catered by the Purple Porch) and discussion.

The sneak preview will be held in the Digital Visualization Theater, Jordan Hall of Science, 1st Floor, far north end; the reception afterward will be in the Jordan Hall Reading Room, same building and floor, far south end.

Let There Be Light is a short planetarium program written, narrated, and produced by Phil Sakimoto (First-Year of Studies and Sustainability Minor) and Lenny DeLorenzo (McGrath Institute for Church Life) at the request of the Vatican. It will serve as the opening segment of the Vatican’s exhibition, Energy for the Common Good: Caring for Our Common Home, at the 2017 International Expo, Future Energy, in Astana, Kazakhstan. The program introduces visitors to the idea that light—from the Big Bang to the Sun—is a fundamental gift of God’s Creation. At the time of this preview showing, Phil will be in Kazakhstan overseeing installation of a planetarium in the Vatican’s exhibition in anticipation of the Expo’s opening on June 10, 2017. At the DVT on May 5, Dr. DeLorenzo will be present to introduce the program. Dr. Keith Davis, Director of the DVT, will also be present to run the theater for us and to answer questions about the technical and astronomical portions of the program.

At the reception we want to give the students experience in discussing their work informally with people they may not know (although you will undoubtedly know some of them). In coming to the reception you will help us give them that opportunity and also have a chance to find out for yourself what they have been doing. This will be the final event of the year for our new Sustainability students: a chance to meet them and show our support for the work they've been doing, and to celebrate the work of faculty and students all across Notre Dame--in the sciences, arts, and humanities--toward realizing a sustainable future in a good common world. We hope to see you there!

Please RSVP to Laura Walls, lwalls@nd.edu, by Wednesday, May 3.