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Gift Designations

Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment Program Support Fund

The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment Program Support Fund strengthens iSEE’s core programs and signature initiatives.

Gifts to this fund help advance public engagement through iSEE Critical Conversations, the Institute’s premier forum exploring complex sustainability challenges. Support may include event production, speaker travel, professional moderation, and related writing and outreach services.

This fund also supports the Capstone Research Experience within the Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (SEE) Fellows Undergraduate Minor. Contributions may provide direct student support as well as mentorship resources for faculty guiding interdisciplinary research teams.

As iSEE continues to grow, this fund ensures the Institute can sustain and expand the programs that define its impact across research, education, and engagement.

Sustainable Energy and Environment Unrestricted Fund

The Sustainable Energy and Environment Unrestricted Fund provides flexible support for iSEE’s mission of advancing research, education, and campus sustainability at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Unrestricted gifts allow iSEE leadership to respond to emerging opportunities, support interdisciplinary collaboration, and invest in strategic priorities that advance sustainability solutions. This flexibility is essential to catalyzing innovative research, strengthening student programs, and accelerating real-world impact.

Environmental Leadership Program Fund

The Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) prepares Illinois undergraduates to lead in environmental policy, governance, and corporate sustainability.

As the only undergraduate program of its kind focused on local, state, and federal policy and corporate leadership, ELP provides students with hands-on learning experiences and direct engagement with policymakers, agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry leaders. Students develop a working understanding of policymaking, accountability principles, and strategies to improve institutional performance.

Support for the Environmental Leadership Program Fund helps:

• Expand internship opportunities, including placements in Washington, D.C.
• Provide financial assistance to reduce barriers to participation
• Strengthen coursework and experiential learning in policy and leadership
• Build long-term relationships with alumni, partners, and host organizations

Gifts to this fund invest directly in students who will shape the future of environmental decision-making and responsible governance.

Highlighted Donor Impacts

Alvin H. Baum Family Fund

iSEE is supported by the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund through a generous gift of $2 million. Before the University of Illinois Board of Trustees and the Illinois Board of Higher Education approved establishment of the Institute on Dec. 16, 2013, the Baum Fund previously supported its predecessors: the Center for a Sustainable Environment and the Environmental Change Institute.

The Baum Fund, under the administrative leadership of Joel Friedman, is also supporting iSEE Critical Conversations and a capstone research project team for students in the Sustainability, Energy, and Environment Fellows Program between 2018 and 2021 with contributions totaling $100,000. Additional generous funding was provided in 2021 in support of iSEE’s Environmental Leadership Program.

The Alvin H. Baum Family Fund is committed to bettering the lives of those who live and work predominantly in the Chicagoland area. Priorities established for the foundation’s giving are health, human services, education, housing, environmental issues and the arts.

Levenick Resident Scholars, Fellows Programs

The Levenick Resident Scholars in Sustainability Leadership Program is part of a major endowment in 2019 by Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick, right, of Naples, Fla. The gift from Mr. Levenick, who received a B.S. in Forestry in 1976 from Illinois, and his wife established an endowed Sustainability Chair in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES) as well as the Resident Scholars in Sustainability Leadership. The Chair will work with iSEE to bring in worldwide sustainability researchers from other universities, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations to share their expertise and collaborate with students and faculty on the Urbana-Champaign campus.

The Levenick iSEE Fellows Program, established in 2015, expanded the institute’s base of research and scholarship by supporting resident Scholars, Research Fellows, and Teaching Fellows. These academics will lead short-term research and educational projects to advance iSEE’s missions of actionable research and campus sustainability.

This program is made possible by a generous endowment from the Levenicks. Mr. Levenick, who retired as Group President of Customer & Dealer Support at Caterpillar Inc., gave $500,000 to the University of Illinois Foundation in late 2014 for the creation of the Levenick iSEE Fellows Program Fund. That fund was matched by Caterpillar, and the matching went toward building the iSEE Collaboratory space, which is used for teaching, research, communications, and collaboration.

Doug and Dawn Sitton Award

In 2024, iSEE began awarding the Doug and Dawn Sitton Award, designed to support educational opportunities and internships for Illinois undergraduate students that can lead to career opportunities when they graduate. iSEE plans to partner with outside companies and organizations like the Illinois Environmental Council to provide internships that might not otherwise exist.

This award is funded by a generous endowment from Doug and Dawn Sitton. Doug Sitton, a 1980 Illinois graduate, is senior principal and client executive at IMEG Corp. and founder of Sitton Energy Solutions, an Illinois-based energy management firm that merged with IMEG in 2022.

“We are grateful to Doug Sitton for his support for iSEE and this new initiative, which builds on our Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) to give students additional experience in environmental policy and advocacy,” iSEE Alvin H. Baum Family Chair & Director Madhu Khanna said.

Janelle Joseph Award

Each year, iSEE Friend Janelle Joseph sends a gift in support of our Certificate in Environmental Writing and Q Magazine.

Joseph’s gifts have supported environmental writing contests for undergraduates as well travel stipends for Q articles, allowing students to immerse experience firsthand the people, places, and environmental issues about which they write.