Since its founding six years ago, the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture has attempted in a number of ways to involve students in helping us transform our culture with the resources of the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition. Our past and present undergraduate assistants here at the Center have initiated and run several programs aimed primarily at Notre Dame undergraduates, including an annual lecture series on major figures in Catholic literature and a dinner event at which Notre Dame students gather with members of the faculty to discuss issues related to Christian spiritual life.
This journal is another means of engaging undergraduates, both at Notre Dame and at other institutions, in the Center's mission. We at the Center are pleased to present this first number of Vita, Dulcedo et Spes, written by undergraduates from around the country, and managed and edited by an editorial board of Notre Dame undergraduates.
The current editorial board has labored for nearly a year now in planning this first number of the journal, and we are very pleased with the results. There is no shortage of writing talent among contemporary undergraduates, and we hope to bring the best of undergraduate writing to the attention of our readers.
I would like to offer special thanks to Chas Tyler, one of the Center's undergraduate assistants, who led our editorial team. And I would also like to thank the Bayer family of Arlington, Tex., for their generous contribution to the Center that made it possible for us to publish Vita, Dulcedo et Spes.
--David Solomon, W.P. and H.B. White Director
