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The 20th Annual Spirituality & Sustainability Awards

A lovely evening under the dome honoring Gary Behrman and John Guenther

The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability hosted its 20th annual Leadership Awards in the Fuller Dome on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, IL. Each year the Center bestows two awards, one for Spirituality Leadership and one for Leadership in Sustainability. This event is an annual fundraiser in support of our mission "to promote humanity's sacred connection to the earth and each other."

Spirituality Leadership Award: Gary Behrman – Gary Behrman put his faith and spiritual values into practice over many years. After serving the Diocese as a priest, Gary devoted his life to serving others: as Associate Dean in the Graduate School, teaching in the Schools of Social Work, Medicine, and Allied Health at St. Louis University; training health professionals to recognize suicide risks, psycho-social spiritual issues in clinical practices; training social workers and clinicians to help families heal from trauma, and ethical issues with end-of-life events. He conducts workshops and seminars throughout the region, and most recently provided a retreat for current and former Catholic priests in Southern Illinois. Gary promotes interfaith dialogue with several religious societies including recent immigrants to St. Louis.

Sustainability Leadership Award: John C. Guenther – John C. Guenther, FAIA, LEED AP has created an exceptional body of architecture that thoughtfully considers the physical, environmental, social and historic context of each project. His work has received over 50 national, regional, and local awards from the AIA and a diverse array of organizations and publications. From 1979 to 2009, with the exception of two years, John was a design principal and partner with Mackey Mitchell Architects. Since 2009, John has practiced architecture independently. His projects of note include the Alberici Corporate Headquarters which was certified by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2005 as the highest rated LEED Platinum building in the world. Through his commitment to good environmental planning, John fought for the City of Wildwood, Missouri’s incorporation in 1995, to help the community stop the environmentally-destructive practices allowed by St. Louis County government.

Agnes Pal Art Exhibition • Closing Reception Set For 2/25/22

The life of artist, holocaust survivor and SIUE alumni, Agnes Pal, is celebrated in this moving exhibition on view in the Fuller Dome Gallery.

SIUE University Museum Executive Curator, Erin Vigneau-Dimick speaking at the opening of the Agnes Pal art exhibition and memorial.

On Friday Feb. 25th at 6PM you are invited to attend a closing reception for the Agnes Pal art exhibition in the Fuller Dome.

Artist Agnes M. Pal, a native of Hungary and a Holocaust survivor, died at 85 years of age on Aug. 26th, 2021 in Glen Carbon, IL. A Celebration of Life and exhibition of Pal’s art opened in the Fuller Dome on Dec. 18th 2021 as an opportunity for Pal’s friends and family to honor her extaordinary life. Pal and her late husband, Alexander, relocated to Edwardsville in the 1970s when Alexander accepted a position as a math professor at SIUE. Pal, a former art director of a New York City advertising agency, found her creative outlet by pursuing graduate studies in the SIUE College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Art and Design.

A highly celebrated metalsmith and sculptor, Pal’s work has been featured in numerous publications and exhibits. The Agnes Majtinszky Pal Collection, featuring more than 50 pieces of sculpture and fine art jewelry created by Pal, is displayed and cared for at the SIUE University Museum.

This closing reception will be the public’s last chance to see this incredible exhibition in the historic Fuller Dome. Please join us Friday, 2/25/22 from 6-8PM in the Fuller Dome, located on the SIUE campus, just off of circle drive, next to Visitor Parking Lot B.

Earth Day 2019 in the Fuller Dome

A Perfect Way to Honor Earth Day

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On Monday, April 22nd, The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability is hosting a pair of special events in the Fuller Dome on the Southern Illinois University Campus, Edwardsville, to observe Earth Day 2019. This two-fold celebration of the planet is intended to address both the spiritual and material aspects of how we can be good stewards of this planet. The Fuller Dome is a translucent, miniature-earth, geodesic dome built by the architectural firm of Fuller and Sadao, Inc. on the campus of SIUE in 1971. Designer Buckminster Fuller and Architect Shoji Sadao sited the center’s dome to straddle the Earth’s 90th Meridian which serendipitously allowed them to reference their earlier work on a more accurate world map that Fuller called the Dymaxion Map. This map also used the 90th meridian as its central reference point, and the resulting structure allows occupants to get a profound sense of their place in the world and the worlds place in the Universe.

The first event is a “Prayer for the Planet” happening in the Fuller Dome at noon on Earth Day. The “Prayer for the Planet” is a nondenominational expression of love and gratitude directed toward the earth. The Fuller Dome’s translucent, miniature-earth, dome provides the perfect place to direct our thanks to our planet that we all too often take for granted. Attendees will be invited to join hands beneath the dome and the Center’s 2014 Spirituality Award winner, Rev. Annie P. Clark of Inner Splendor will share a devotional she wrote titled “A Blessing for Our Planet.”  

The second portion of the Fuller Dome Earth Day Celebration begins at 7:00 pm on the evening of 4/22 in the newly inaugurated Fuller Dome Gallery. The Gallery is currently exhibiting a collection of art prints created by Buckminster Fuller of his most transformative inventions. This collection of photographs and renderings of Fuller’s sustainably driven inventions are being offered as inspiration to professionals working in the fields of architecture, design and engineering. Fuller called for a "design science revolution" to “make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” Attendees will join in an informal round table discussion lead by professionals working in fields of design science to discuss how our built environment can be in better balance with our natural environment. The discussion will draw on the inspiration presented by Fuller's legacy and offer it as a challenge to create a more sustainable society by taking an examined look at where we have been, where we are are now and where we need to go as a species.

The Earth Day 2019 events in the Fuller Dome are free and open to all who wish to attend. For more information email fullerdome@hotmail.com or visit www.fullerdome.org

Bucky's Daughter & Granddaughter to visit the Dome

Bucky's Geodesic drawings art print

Come join two generations of Buckminster Fuller’s family and celebrate a “Bucky Weekend” honoring his legacy in this region. The Center for Spirituality and Sustainability is hosting an opening reception of their new Fuller Dome Gallery. This new exhibition space is located inside the Buckminster Fuller designed Fuller Dome on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It opens with a reception on Friday, November 9th running from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.

Examples of Bucky’s art prints that will be on view in the Fuller Dome Gallery

Examples of Bucky’s art prints that will be on view in the Fuller Dome Gallery

The opening reception will feature an exhibition of Buckminster Fuller’s art print portfolio entitled Inventions: Twelve Around One. This print portfolio was gifted to the Center for Spirituality and Sustainability in 2017 by the Estate of Buckminster Fuller and was received into the SIUE University Museum collection in cooperation with the SIUE Foundation. This important set of art prints, produced in 1981, features 13 of Buckminster Fuller’s most significant inventions presented as drawings as well as duotone photographs of those inventions. Future exhibitions in the Fuller Dome Gallery will be curated from the SIUE University Museum’s culturally significant collection of art and artifacts. The framing of the Fuller art prints and the creation of the Fuller Dome Gallery was made possible through a grant from The Meridian Society.

Bucky Fuller’s daughter, Allegra Fuller Snyder, his granddaughter Alexandra May and her husband Sam May will be in attendance for the gallery’s opening, which is part of the “Bucky Weekend” presented at the Fuller Dome. The opening reception of the Fuller Dome Gallery is free and open to the public; however, a premium ticket is available for private events with Bucky’s family that include a VIP Preview of the exhibition and a Bucky related art and architecture tour of the St Louis area.

For a Fuller Experience: We are offering a limited release of 30 Premium Tickets at $100 per ticket for you to enjoy an exclusive VIP Preview of the Fuller Dome Gallery art exhibition with Bucky’s family on Friday, November 9th from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Your ticket gets you exclusive access to the preview with hors d’oeuvres and an open bar before the public reception that opens at 7:00 pm.

Plus you’ll have exclusive access to a Bucky related art & architectural tour on the following day in a chartered bus with lunch provided. The tour begins from the SIUE Fuller Dome on Saturday, November 10th at 9:00 am and will cover an array of Bucky related sites and history found in the St Louis area. The tour plans to return to the SIUE Fuller Dome at 4:00 pm. Premium tickets for the VIP Preview on 11/9/18, includes the bonus architectural tour with Bucky’s family on Saturday, 11/10/18.

Bucky Art & Architecture Tour:

  • The tour begins at the Bucky designed SIUE Fuller Dome at 9:00 am on Saturday 11/10. After meeting in the dome we’ll board a chartered bus in front of the Fuller Dome at SIUE in Visitor Parking Lot B

  • The first stop is the Mary Brown Center in East St Louis. This is a built example of Bucky’s 1965 Laminar Geodesic Dome patent. It was built in 1968 and housed the “town hall” meetings for Bucky’s Old Man River City Project he designed for East St Louis in collaboration with Washington University at the urging of famed East St Louis dancer, Katherine Dunham and Wyvetter H. Younge, an Illinois state representative serving East St Louis.

  • The second stop will be the Union Tank Car dome in Woodriver Illinois. The Woodriver dome was built in 1961. It’s 384-foot-wide by 120-foot-high geodesic dome. It was constructed for the Union Tank Car Company for the repair of railroad oil tank cars. Synergetics, Inc., a company founded by Bucky, built this as a pair of tank car domes, but the earlier dome in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, built in 1958 was demolished 2008. At the time, the two domes were the world’s largest clear-span structures.

  • Our Lunch stop in St Louis at the Kranzberg Foundation’s “Zack” Building is presented by the Creative Exchange Lab. Bucky’s daughter Allegra Fuller will do a reading from he father’s essay entitled “Geoview.” This essay was written for the inauguration of Bucky’s SIUE dome. A box lunch will be provided and during lunch you can enjoy a presentation on the construction of St Louis’ “Climatron” dome at the Missouri Botanical gardens.

  • After lunch we are going to the Ruth Asawa Exhibition at St Louis’ Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Artist Ruth Asawa drew inspiration from Bucky as one of his students at Black Mountain College, NC. Ruth and Bucky remained life-long friends and an important Asawa sculpture that hung in Bucky’s Carbondale Illinois dome home is on loan to for exhibit from Bucky’s daughter Allegra.

  • After taking in the Ruth Asawa exhibition we will return the SIUE dome by approximately 4:00 pm.

Space is limited and demand is high so reserve your ticket today by clicking the link below or call Juli Jacobsen at (618) 650-3246 to reserve a spot.


This “Bucky Weekend” was made possible through the partnership and collaborative effort of:

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Celebration of World Faiths 2018

“Religious Freedom in America: Building Bridges of Trust.”

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Please join us at the Center for Spirituality & Sustainability in Edwardsville on October 20, 2018 at 7:00 for our 2018 Annual Celebration of World Faiths. This year’s program is a presentation on “Religious Freedom in America: Building Bridges of Trust.” It will begin with an animated video that explains in clear terms the origins of the separation of church and state doctrine and its importance to all faith traditions within the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

The presenter will be Dr. Jaymeson Stroud, M.D., who is the president of the O’Fallon Illinois Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. He will share stories of religious persecution that LDS Church members experienced in Illinois and Missouri in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries to demonstrate the importance of religious freedom as intended by the founders of our country. Questions from the audience will be entertained as Dr. Stroud finishes his presentation. Refreshments and opportunity for fellowship will be provided after the program. 

The event is free and open to the public

We Are Proud to Host "The Mississippi Project Workshop VIII"

 
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The Mississippi Project Workshop VIII:

The Value of the Humanities in Teaching and Learning about Sustainability:

Teaching Sustainability Through the Humanities

Are you interested in exploring how you can incorporate sustainability into your curriculum? Are you curious as to how the humanities can add value to your curriculum – even if you’re not in the humanities yourself? Join us for an interactive experience where we’ll explore just that, as well as sustainability learning outcomes, strategies for infusing sustainability into the curriculum, and assignments that promote systems thinking and a sustainability mindset. Participants will also have opportunities to extend research and teaching horizons across disciplines and create new networks with fellow colleagues from SIUE and the region. To register, please email Connie Frey Spurlock.

9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Wednesday, Aug. 15
SIUE Center for Spirituality and Sustainability (The Fuller Dome)

The workshop is free to educators in the region, and will be co-facilitated by Connie Frey Spurlock and Lisa Martino-Taylor. Register at cfrey@siue.edu.

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  • These resource experts bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the workshop. SIUE's Shelly Goebl-Parker will help participants think about how art can be incorporated into the sustainability curriculum.
  • SIUE Distinguished Research Professor Greg Fields will share connections between indigenous knowledge and sustainability.
  • The Mississippi Project at SIUE is one of 13 AASHE recognized Centers for Sustainbility Across the Curriculum. The workshop is in its 8th year, and has been hosted by SIUE, Saint Louis University and Harris Stowe State University.
  • Deadline to register is August 8, 2018.

See the AASHE event page here.