Voorhees College has become the first historically black college in the state to commit to helping stabilize the climate by promoting research and education and by eventually eliminating all net global warming emissions on campus.

Dr. Cleveland L. Sellers Jr., Voorhees president, recently signed the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment, along with leaders of other institutions across the country.

"Global warming is a defining challenge of our time," Sellers said. "Human activities are responsible for the problem, and working together, humans have the capacity to solve the problem. That means taking serious action today to stop adding global warming pollution to the atmosphere. Voorhees is committed to leading the way."

Voorhees's plan to stabilize the climate includes adopting green standards in its buildings, requiring ENERGY STAR certification for products purchased by the college, supporting the use of public transportation, carpooling, purchasing energy from renewable sources and participating in the national RecycleMania competition's waste minimization component.

The Denmark college has received two grants totaling $40,000 that will help it in its efforts to protect the environment.

One grant, for $20,000, came from the United Negro College Fund and will enable Voorhees to develop and carry out green initiatives to provide measures to reduce energy consumption. A technical assistant grant of $20,000 came from the South Carolina Energy Office and is designed to conduct an energy assessment on 17 facilities and buildings on the Voorhees campus. This grant was funded through the stimulus bill.