RADFORD -- To commemorate national Campus Sustainability Day on Wednesday, Oct. 21, Radford University President Penelope W. Kyle will sign the American College and University’s President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in a ceremony at 9 a.m. in the Hurlburt Student Center. The action pledges the university to work towards neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions and building research and educational programs designed to help society re-stabilize the earth’s climate.

“We are pleased to join this important effort and commit RU to the path of healthy environmental stewardship,” said President Kyle. “Our campus community is dedicated to sustainability.”

As part of the PCC signing ceremony, the RU Sustainability Steering Committee (SSC) will release the Greenhouse Gas Inventory, RU’s 2008 baseline study of the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by the SSC’s measurement working group.

“The Sustainability Steering Committee is very proud of the work done by its measurement working group,” said Dr. Dennis Grady, Sustainability Steering Committee chair and Dean of the RU College of Graduate and Professional Studies. “Making our campus the premier “green” campus in the Commonwealth is a campus-wide endeavor and this is but one example of how a group of concerned and dedicated people can help us on the way.”

RU’s Campus Sustainability Day will cap a series of awareness building events sponsored by the SSC and several campus partners, according to Julio Stephens, RU’s sustainability coordinator. The College of Graduate and Professional Studies, the Club Programming Committee and the Environmental Club will present Joel Salatin, operator of Polyface Farms and a noted sustainable farmer from Waynesboro, VA on Monday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. in Heth 04. Salatin, author of six books on sustainable farming, was featured in Michael Pollan’s recent bestseller “The Ominivore’s Dilemma” and the films Fresh and Food, Inc.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. in Heth 014, the College of Graduate and Professional Studies, the Club Programming Committee and the Environmental Club will screen Fresh, a 2009 independent movie that celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system after witnessing the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronting the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and morbid obesity. Both events are open to the general public and free.

For more information on RU’s sustainability activities, visit www.radford.edu/rugreen/.