Category: Academic Opportunity

As a self-described theater kid, Liesl Schrag always knew Broadway was the mecca for aspiring performers.

Stepping into the U.S. Capitol complex for the first time last spring, the new University of Illinois environmental sciences graduate had a similar feeling: “This is where the magic happens.”

Schrag was one of 13 Illinois students who traveled to the nation’s capital in mid-May as part of the first-ever Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) in Washington, D.C., offered by the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE). There, the students pitched climate-related bills to federal policymakers and met with sustainability advocates in the private and nonprofit sectors.

Those selected for the D.C. trip had already completed the regular eight-week ELP during the spring semester, where they gained hands-on experience in environmental policymaking and legislative lobbying at the state and local level and met with corporate sustainability leaders in Chicago. For many, that experience fundamentally altered their career path, steering them toward jobs related to environmental policy. The trip to Washington reinforced their new trajectory in profound ways.

“The ELP was quite literally the springboard for everything. That was only validated in D.C.,” said Raphael Ranola, an agricultural and consumer economics major who discovered his career “north star” while visiting a nonprofit firm on the Washington trip.

For Noah Yeager, a U. of I. senior in history and political science, “The Environmental Leadership Program in D.C. has been one of the most formative experiences of my college career. Advocating to United States legislators was a dream come true, especially at the undergraduate level. … Simply put, I don’t ever think I have ever learned so much while having so much fun in one week.”

During the four-day trip, the students met with congressional aides for U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth and Richard Durbin of Illinois, as well as U.S. Rep. Mike Quiqley and staff for Reps. Sean Casten, Robin Kelly, Delia Ramirez, and Eric Sorensen of Illinois, gaining insight into how science and policy intersect on Capitol Hill.

They split into policy teams and advocated for federal legislation that would ban polystyrene containers in food service, support urban heat mitigation strategies, and establish voluntary climate labeling for food products.

With guidance from Colin Kerr, Federal Relations Specialist for the University of Illinois System, the students toured the U.S. Capitol and learned about the system’s ongoing legislative efforts at the federal level.

The students also visited key organizations working at the intersection of policy, environment, and communications, including:

• Sol Systems – Solar development and legislation
• Resources for the Future – Economic research and policy
• Smart Growth America – Urban planning issues
• League of Conservation Voters – Advocacy strategy and environmental campaigns
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of the Chief Economist – Food systems and climate
• Politico/EE News – Media’s role in policymaking

In between, the group bonded over visits to federal monuments and museums, walks along the National Mall, group dinners, and karaoke.

A Federal Component for the ELP

The D.C. trip was several years in the making. iSEE launched the initial eight-week ELP in Spring 2022 with support from the Alvin H. Baum Family Fund to prepare undergraduates for leadership roles in sustainability fields. Each spring, students spend six weeks refining their policy presentations and hearing from experts in the field. Then, in the final two weeks, they make their pitches to local government officials and meet with state legislators and policymakers in Springfield and business professionals in Chicago during Spring Break.

A federal component was always part of the plan, but organizers wanted to ensure that it didn’t conflict with the spring ELP program and that students could visit D.C. while Congress was in session, said iSEE Senior Academic Program Instructor/Advisor Eric Green, who directs the ELP.

Green’s student interns – Andres Vazquez, Lilly Kooyenga and Ehrevkah Martin – provided invaluable feedback during the planning stages for last May’s inaugural program, as well as logistical support during the trip itself. Kerr and Paul Weinberger, Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations for the U. of I. System, lent expert guidance and arranged a dozen meetings with senators and congressional representatives.

The political climate in Washington wasn’t necessarily conducive to the environmental policies the students were pushing, Green said. But Schrag said they still came away hopeful after some “pep talks” from the legislative aides: Times will change, and putting the building blocks in place now will make it easier to get things done in the future.

Students chosen for the D.C. program drew on their ELP experience at the state and local level to quickly become familiar with the federal policy landscape and prepare for the congressional meetings. However, the trip coincided with the passage of a major budget bill in Congress that kept lawmakers occupied, so the students focused their lobbying on legislative staff – including one of Rep. Casten’s aides who had actually drafted the climate food labeling bill. He quizzed the students to see how well they understood the bill; they passed with flying colors.

“They were definitely very interactive and gave a lot of feedback, which was really helpful,” said Schrag, who double-majored in Integrative Biology and Earth, Society, and Environmental Sustainability.

“The staffers seemed really interested in what we had to say and, though the legislative environment is not in our favor, we learned that it takes years of planning and advocacy across different Congresses to pass laws – affirming our resolve,” Yeager said.

For Schrag, learning the art of a successful pitch was exhilarating, building on her experience performing in numerous theatrical productions growing up.

“I’m still a theater kid at heart, so I want to present and perform,” she said. But she’d never had to speak in a professional setting, conveying key points quickly and confidently. “I kind of had it locked in by the end.”

That’s one goal of the program – to give students a sense of empowerment, in part by allowing them to choose which policies to support, Green said.

“This is something they can work on the rest of their life, whether it’s through their personal life or they do it as a professional in some manner,” Green said.

New Career Pathways

Previously, Schrag had been searching for a job that would combine her public speaking skills with her interest in the environment. “Now I realize it does exist. It was really cool to find that out,” she said.

The huge team effort involved in lobbying was also eye-opening. “It makes me feel like anyone can work their way in and help in some sort of way, which made me optimistic,” Schrag said.

The high point for Ranola was the chance to meet with Resources for the Future (RFF), a nonprofit research institute that uses economic research to improve decisions on energy, the environment, and natural resources. Earlier in his college career, Ranola was unsure how to blend his studies in economics with his interest in environmental issues. The ELP showed him how to combine environmental policy, international development, and sustainability – and meeting the staff at RFF pulled it all together.

“To see that there’s work being done at that scale, at that level, by really smart people, was great,” Ranola said. “I kind of saw a glimpse of my future. There are these technocratic, highly educated people who are just doing economics to save the planet. That’s exactly what I want to be doing.”

Schrag was “star struck” during the visit to the League of Conservation Voters, an organization she has followed since first hearing about its work through the ELP.  She hadn’t even considered an environmental career until she was accepted into the ELP last fall, but the opportunity to work directly on policies affecting her own community and advocate for them firsthand changed her plans. She worked on a bill that would ban carbon capture and sequestration near underground aquifers, including the Mahomet Aquifer that supplies water to Champaign County communities. That experience brought home the importance of local and state environmental policies in protecting the community and people around her.

“This is such a relevant issue to me, growing up here. My family lives here,” she said. “I realized I actually do enjoy doing this kind of work. That’s the beauty of ELP as a program – you really get to do it yourself.”

She’s now interested in a policy job in Washington with the government or an organization like the League of Conservation Voters.

“The ELP has definitely changed my career trajectory,” she said. “It opened my horizons.”

Expanding the D.C. Pipeline

Another D.C. program highlight: Being at the center of it all – and inside the rooms where environmental policy happens. Walking through the halls of congressional office buildings with interns, legislative assistants, and legislators, Schrag thought: “I’m in the buildings where all these people who make change are.”

That high-level access is typically enjoyed by students at East Coast schools, said Ranola, who would like to see a stronger Illinois pipeline to D.C.

“There’s a real case for place-based opportunity,” Ranola said. “Being able to actually interface with the companies that are doing the stuff that I wanted to be doing was immensely helpful for career clarity. That’s the kind of intangible that you can’t really get by going on a Zoom call.”

U. of I. does offer the Illinois in Washington program, which coordinates semester-long internships for students in the nation’s capital; and iSEE affiliate Jonathan Coppess, Gardner Associate Professor of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, offers a similar Washington trip focused on agricultural policy as part of his ACE 291 course.

But in terms of teaching students about sustainability advocacy, and the trade-offs involved in the policy process, “this is it,” Green said. The addition of the D.C. component elevated the students’ experience – and made the ELP the premiere undergraduate program focusing on local, state, and federal policy, he said.

“There was something about that elevation that was really transformative,” he said. “To be in a place where such big things happen, seeing the sort of chaos of it all but also knowing that all of this is in service of the American public – it was gratifying for them to reach that level.”

Green hopes to offer the D.C. program again next spring, drawing from the ranks of ELP graduates or possibly working with Coppess on a blended program involving environmental and agricultural policy.

Whatever form it takes, the ELP alums encourage other students to sign up.

“Goodness yes. It was awesome,” Ranola said. “Do it.”

– Article by iSEE Communications Specialist Julie Wurth

Interested in applying for the Spring 2026 ELP? Applications for the eight-week program, which begins in January, will be open Monday, Sept. 29, through Friday, Oct. 31.

As the inaugural recipient of iSEE’s Doug and Dawn Sitton Award, University of Illinois senior Rudy LaFave won a paid internship to work with the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) on lobbying efforts during the Illinois General Assembly’s spring legislative session.

The Sitton Award, designed to support Illinois undergraduates in finding post-graduation sustainability careers, found a model recipient in LaFave. In addition to being President of the Illinois Student Council and Students for Environmental Concerns (SECS), LaFave is an Environmental Economics and Policy major and was a member of iSEE’s 2024 Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) cohort. As an ELP student, LaFave worked with the IEC to craft a bill that would require state institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies. That experience helped LaFave land his internship, which wrapped up in June 2024.

While only in Springfield for a few weeks, LaFave found the internship to be a perfect fit. “This was an amazing opportunity for me personally, not only to learn about what I like and what I dislike about environmental policy, but also to learn how I can fit in to making our world more sustainable,” he said.

LaFave also expressed gratitude to Doug and Dawn Sitton, whose generous endowment made his internship a reality. The funds seemed to be well spent: “I could not have asked for a more perfect opportunity,” LaFave said.

iSEE caught up with LaFave after his internship to find out more about the experience and how it will shape his future career.

How did you initially get involved with environmental policy? And what about the field interests you the most?

My interest in environmental policy goes back to when I first got involved in environmental organizing in my junior year in high school, during the 2019 climate strikes led by Greta Thunberg. I really found environmentalism to be tackling an issue — the climate crisis — that I think will probably be one of the most defining issues in our generation and probably in our planet’s history.

I think the best way to tackle this issue is through policy. Especially when you use an economic lens, we can understand why we’re in our present situation, why our systems — whether economic or political — are set up the way they are, and how to best work within that to be able to change for the better.

When we talk about protecting our environment, oftentimes there’s a narrative that the economy and the environment are at odds, but a lot of the time they’re not. We can certainly create systems and set things up, whether through incentives or otherwise, to be able to work together. I think all of this, for me personally, stems from the love of our planet and its environment and seeing the climate change crisis for what it is.

You’re the President of SECS — can you tell us about your experience with that and any other environmental organizations you’ve been a part of?

SECS is an organization I joined my freshman year. We’re the oldest and largest environmental organization on campus. If you look back at the history of SECS, we’ve definitely focused on a variety of issues. Our current project — and this is something that you’ll hear me harp on a lot — is our university’s investments in fossil fuels. It’s something we’ve been advocating for as an organization for over a decade and a half, since 2008.

Most recently, and actually because of the Sitton Award and my experience in the Environmental Leadership Program, we’ve been able to write a bill, HB 5268, that would force the Board of Trustees to divest from fossil fuel companies. The bill already has multiple co-sponsors.

It was an awesome experience to be in Springfield working with the policymakers behind this legislation. If anything, it really gives me hope that making change in environmental policy through our governmental institutions is possible. Additionally, it really shows that students are serious about holding our university accountable for what it preaches versus what it practices.

Can you elaborate more about your experience with the ELP?

It was awesome. You know, I’ve said this to anybody I run into who is curious about the Environmental Leadership Program: This is one of the best experiences I’ve had learning about sustainability. I really like the fact that this year we took trips to both Chicago and Springfield. We learned how legislation is passed, we worked with the Illinois Environmental Council (the people quite literally on the ground making change); we talked to senators and representatives.

It was also really great to gain experience in understanding what corporate sustainability looks like. We spoke to Motorola Solutions and learned about the different ways that they’re using less material and using more recyclable plastic in their walkie-talkies and such. I definitely feel like those are valuable solutions to the question, “How do we make our society more sustainable?”

Let’s move on to your experience receiving the Doug and Dawn Sitton Award. How was your internship with the IEC?

Oh, I loved it. The IEC is led by some great, great people. Everyone comes into the office and they really seem to know what they’re doing. It makes me feel really good as a prospective change-maker to some degree here in the state of Illinois. There are people literally fighting for environmental change at our Capitol. It was an incredible experience to be alongside them on the front lines talking to representatives and senators about environmental change.

We actually worked on a carbon capture and sequestration bill that ended up passing. It was cool to be able to see the process in real time: How they create a shell bill and how they cater to different sponsors to work with them to be able to get legislation through on a deadline.

The whole experience was a really great opportunity to get a sense of what work culture is like outside of school. It was kind of like a shock of cold water. Still, it was really fun to be in an atmosphere where I didn’t know what I was going to be doing tomorrow or even in the next hour. You could be waiting for a committee to start for three hours, or you could be sitting inside writing emails and watching the House waiting for your bill to come up. I really like that atmosphere. It was a great way to have a more in-depth learning experience, learning on the job how to make institutional environmental policy change.

What did your day-to-day responsibilities look like at the IEC? Did you work with legislators? Lobbyists? A bit of both?

There is a lot of work that I did on the ground building relationships. I did a lot of literature drop-off. I now know the Capitol and the Stratton Legislative Building like the back of my hand. There was a lot of developing relationships with legislative staff as well. You can have a great relationship with the senator or representative, but if you’re not on good terms with their staff, it really hampers whatever change you’re trying to make.

Some days, I was putting together email lists. My second day there, I was already leading a team for the Zero Waste lobby day, which is definitely a way to learn the ropes quickly, having all these people relying on you to be able to talk to a specific senator or representative. The schedule was hectic. On the Friday before I was supposed to leave, they dropped the budget Everyone was trying to go home, but that just wasn’t going to happen. The Senate passed the budget, and we were combing through this 3,000-page document, trying to find out which programs of ours were being funded and which weren’t, at 8 p.m. at night. It was a whole thing, a whole experience.

What would you say was the most exciting thing you worked on?

I think it was the carbon capture and sequestration bill that we passed. On a random Thursday night, about five lobbyist groups — including the Illinois Manufacturing Association, the Illinois Sierra Club, and the IEC — were called to testify before the House Environment and Energy Committee. It was already about 6 p.m. on that Thursday night, it was raining, but the committee was being called quickly. It was just a moment of like, “This is probably one of the most robust carbon capture sequestration bills in the entire country.” It was really exciting to literally be in the room when it passed committee.

It was amazing to see how all those months of negotiations kind of came together at the last moment — literally the day before session was supposed to end — and to be in the room when it passed and have six different lobbyists lined up in support of this legislation. It was pretty cool.

How has the Sitton Award helped your career goals or objectives?

This internship award specifically has given me the opportunity and experience to learn what I like, what I don’t like, and how to make the change that I want to see. Even though I wasn’t necessarily talking to representatives or senators one-on-one, I was still learning the process. I was still learning how to drop off literature. I was still getting an understanding of how our government system works and how I can eventually, and hopefully one day, play a role in that.

I think it’s all about exposure, especially with people who are applying for this, because they want to learn more and they want to be involved, just like I was. As I was saying earlier with the divestment bill, I took so much information away and so many good strategies about how to move forward. I really could not have done that without this internship or without this scholarship.

Would you recommend other students apply for this award?

One hundred percent. If you are truly interested in learning more about the way in which our government makes environmental policies, if you are interested in environmental leadership in any capacity in the future, or if you are just curious and want to learn more about environmentalism and how you can play your part, absolutely. As long as you come with a willingness to learn and a willingness to work your butt off, you will take so much away from it. I highly recommend this to anybody considering it.

If you are an Illinois student interested in sustainability internships, please contact iSEE Senior Academic Program Instructor/Advisor Eric Green at ewgreen@illinois.edu.

— Article by iSEE Communications Associate Gabe Lareau and iSEE Intern Kratika Tandon 

The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) has announced the first winner of the newly established Doug and Dawn Sitton Award, designed to help University of Illinois undergraduates improve their career prospects in sustainability fields.

Rudy LaFave, a junior majoring in Agricultural and Consumer Economics, received a stipend to work as a legislative intern with the Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) in May through the end of the spring legislative session.

This award was made possible 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 excited to partner with the Illinois Environmental Council to offer this unique opportunity to our students,” said iSEE Alvin H. Baum Family Fund Director Madhu Khanna, Professor of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at Illinois. “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.”

The Sitton Award was created to support educational opportunities and internships for U of I students that can lead to career opportunities when they graduate. iSEE plans to partner with outside companies and organizations like IEC to provide internships that might not otherwise exist, according to Eric Green, iSEE’s Senior Academic Program Instructor/Advisor.

“Dawn and I are proud to partner with iSEE to help continue the University of Illinois’ leadership in sustainability, including providing opportunities that help students develop into future leaders in the sustainability field,” Doug Sitton said.

LaFave received a $2,500 award from iSEE, and IEC provided a stipend for housing and food. LaFave worked with the IEC on fossil-fuel divestment legislation as a member of the Spring 2024 ELP cohort; IEC Executive Director Jennifer Walling is a member of the ELP Advisory Board.

During his three-week internship, which began May 13, LaFave was expected to work closely with IEC’s Legislative Team during the closing weeks of the spring session: attending committee meetings and events; monitoring bills and other items that arise; and providing administrative support for IEC staff.

IEC Chief of Staff Chelsea Biggs, who worked with Green to develop the position, said IEC was looking for additional support during the busy end-of-session period, so the internship was a perfect fit.

“It’s a unique opportunity for students to see firsthand how the last weeks of session come together and how bills become laws with the active engagement of advocates and lobbyists,” Biggs said. “We were impressed by Rudy’s work in the ELP, and we’re thrilled to have him on board.”

LaFave, who focuses on environmental economics and policy, is president of the Illinois Student Council and has served as co-vice president of Students for Environmental Concerns (SECS) and Environmental Action Director for the Illini Democrats.

— News release by iSEE Communications Specialist Julie Wurth

Spring 2023 marked the wrap-up of the second year of iSEE’s Environmental Leadership Program (ELP), the University of Illinois’ first and only developmental program centered on environmental policy and legislative advocacy. Just two years after its launch, ELP students have already achieved success within and beyond the program — contributing to state and local efforts to curb harmful waste, landing top internships in state government, and winning national recognition for their public service.

The ELP grants students a considerable amount of freedom in what types of policies they pursue throughout the entire process. They select environmental issues that spark both interest and passion, and they have the choice to advocate for environmental issues at the State Capitol in Springfield, develop and deliver presentations at Urbana and Champaign City Council meetings, or tackle policies at both the local and state levels.

The 2022 and ’23 cohorts focused on 10 different state bills and three local policy matters covering a wide variety of subjects. Students worked on topics ranging from environmental justice to nuclear construction, microfiber filtration, and housing rehabilitation, among others. Providing students with the opportunity to meet with legislators and initiate discussions on subjects that they deeply care about can spark tangible change at all levels.

Tyler Swanson, part of the 2022 ELP cohort, opted to work at the local level, advocating for the adoption of a plastic bag tax in the city of Urbana. Urbana City Council Member Grace Wilken, who collaborated with Swanson on that effort, said it is always “important to have constituents who reach out,” since public input is often the driving force behind conversations about policy change.

Swanson’s commitment to the cause, however, extended beyond his participation in the ELP. After completing the program, he continued to work with Wilken and Urbana’s Sustainability Officer Scott Tess to advance the project further. Swanson had the opportunity to collaborate and share resources with city officials and present their findings to the Urbana Sustainability Commission.

Urbana’s local government has continued conversations about this initiative. Wilken said the plastic bag tax has general support, but the city needs to find a way to work with the city of Champaign to implement it. “It’s a matter of how we can actually do it, not whether or not to do it.” Swanson feels both proud and optimistic about these efforts, adding that his group was “successful in getting an idea from being just policy on a factsheet to actually getting some strong conversation … at the municipal level.”

ELP students have also seen success with their advocacy efforts in Springfield during the past couple of state legislative sessions. One of the 2023 ELP groups focused its efforts on House Bill 2376 (EPA — Disposable Food Containers), which aimed to ban the use of polystyrene containers in restaurants. The bill successfully passed the Illinois House of Representatives just one week after the cohort’s visit to Springfield.

“It was rewarding to see that the representatives in the House saw (polystyrene production and overuse) as an important problem that needed to be addressed,” said group member Ayden Maza. While acknowledging that his group may have played only a small role in getting this legislation passed, Maza is grateful that he was “able to at least inform legislators about the bill and put it on their radar. Being able to say that a bill I worked on passed the Illinois House is amazing,” he said.

HB 2376 is currently stalled in the Senate until next session, but Senate Bill 58 (Degradable Plastic — Single Use), which requires state agencies and universities to reduce polystyrene use starting in 2025, passed both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in August 2023. The HB 2376 group found it exciting that a bill so similar to theirs was approved by the Governor. As Maza put it, “It’s a good feeling to know Illinois is taking a step in the right direction. Any win for sustainability is a win.”

The program has also been widely beneficial for students’ own professional and academic development. Cohort members have been able to hone their skills and utilize them in other aspects of their lives, finding success as a direct result of these experiences.

Recent Illinois graduate Lucy Nifong, who was part of the 2023 ELP cohort, worked on House Bill 1568 (Right to Recreate), which proposed an expansion of the definition of navigable waters to include water bodies supporting both commercial and recreational use. Nifong said the experience surpassed her expectations, and the skills she learned from the ELP have assisted both her academic and professional careers.

She is currently working as a Dunn Fellow at the Office of the Governor of Illinois, which gives recent college graduates a year of hands-on experience working for different state agencies and units within the Governor’s office. She felt prepared for this role because of the experience she gained during the ELP reviewing legislation, communicating with representatives, and understanding the nexus between state agencies and the General Assembly. Upon completion of her fellowship, Nifong hopes to study environmental law and pursue a legal career in government. Overall, she said, the ELP experience was “invaluable.”

Swanson, who focused on policy as an undergraduate in Agricultural and Consumer Economics, said the ELP gave him a “behind-the-scenes look” at how municipal policy is implemented. Now a master’s student in geography at the University of Arizona, he is still putting his ELP skills to use in his research on environmental policies and practices that can accelerate the transition to a more sustainable economy.

“Policy advocacy is for anybody. All it takes is a little bit of willingness to get out there and contact people,” Swanson said.

Other ELP alumni have been recognized nationally for their efforts. Andres Vazquez, who was part of the ELP in 2022, continues to work as an intern for the program. And in August 2023, Vazquez was named a recipient of the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service. Only 100 students nationwide receive this prestigious award, which strives to develop and empower future leaders to create meaningful change.

Vazquez attributes a significant portion of his career growth in public service to the Environmental Leadership Program. “The ELP allowed me to speak for an environmental justice community that has a similar history to my own neighborhood in Chicago. Being able to advocate for these neglected communities launches me further toward a career of helping others through public service,” he says. As a Voyager Scholar, he plans to continue working to help others, especially those who “face insurmountable obstacles toward environmental injustice.”

These success stories will likely multiply as the ELP expands its focus to include corporate sustainability and, eventually, federal policy. In Spring 2024, ELP students will have the opportunity to work with businesses in Chicago that are adopting sustainable practices. The goal is to “get students to engage with leaders in these areas and understand how to advocate and support environmental sustainability,” said Eric Green, iSEE’s Senior Academic Program Instructor/Advisor, who leads the ELP.

Giving students the tools to work on advocacy and the opportunity to do it is a powerful combination, Green said, allowing them to “take ownership of what their future is going to look like. They can understand that, honestly, it’s totally within their grasp to do that. The actual part where students recognize that they have power and can use that to make change is the thing that always excites me.”

— Article by iSEE Communications Intern Kratika Tandon

For over two decades, U of I alumna Jennifer Walling has dedicated her life to fighting for environmental progress. During her time as an undergrad in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Walling got her start with environmental advocacy through the Students for Environmental Concerns (SECS) registered student organization. As SECS president in 2003, she played a major role in the passing of U of I’s very first clean energy fee: a major step toward campus sustainability. Walling also helped to found the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), the group that manages the funding accumulated from student sustainability fees.

Now, as the executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, a legislative advocacy group, she is able to create change on an even larger level. Walling still works closely with the university, maintaining roles as a faculty member and a serving on various advisory committees, including iSEE’s Environmental Leadership Program. Ahead of the coming semester, iSEE’s Kratika Tandon sat down with her for a Q&A.

 

Kratika Tandon: How long have you been the Executive Director of the Illinois Environmental Council? 

Jennifer Walling: It’s been more than 12 years since I started this role in January 2011.

 

KT: What does your professional background look like? What did you study before starting with the IEC?

JW: I have a bachelors in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from the University of Illinois. After getting this degree in 2003, I received a master’s and law degree through the joint degree program. My undergraduate and graduate degrees were very science-oriented. I studied mercury and water, but I knew I really didn’t want to work in a lab. I did a lot of different internships during high school and college, and everything boiled down to the fact that I was ultimately interested in some sort of lobbying or advocacy work. After I graduated, I started working at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, which is a public interest nonprofit law firm. I was there for a year and a half before I made a move over to work as Chief of Staff for State Senator Heather Steans, where I was for three years before taking my current job.

 

KT: You mentioned that you got a law degree, but you don’t practice law and you never have?

JW: I have an active attorney license, but I don’t practice, and I have never been to court. I do some things that I believe have benefited from my law degree, but I really didn’t need that degree to be successful in the work I’m doing now.

 

KT: How did you first get involved with the Illinois Environmental Council, and what made you realize that this organization would be a good fit for you?

JW: I learned about this organization and about the work that they were doing in Springfield when I was in college. At that time, the IEC was more of a generic environmental think tank and education center that did some lobbying and advocacy work. When I got involved, many of the members already had an established niche, and my position was also just the perfect niche for me, because it was focused on advocacy and lobbying in the environmental space. This position matched my interests of advocacy, state-level lobbying, and working on anything and everything having to do with the environment.

 

KT:  What has your IEC role provided for you, and likewise, what have you been able to bring to the organization? 

JW: I think what has made us successful is finding a niche and sticking to it. Our niche is working on advocacy that is directly related to environmental issues. We’re not just a generic environmental education group; we work specifically on informing lawmakers and building our influence so we can pass the best environmental policies. Everything that we do is focused on our priorities of where we want to go and ensuring that we’re headed in the right direction. We don’t take money to run programs or talk to children’s groups — doing generic education for the public. That’s not the work we do, and our funders know and appreciate that. We might need to occasionally turn down some opportunities because they want to take us out of the work we’re supposed to be doing, but I think that’s part of what has made us tremendously successful. 

 

KT: Can you detail the responsibilities that your position entails? What might a day, or even a week, in your life look like?

JW: I balance running the organization as an executive and working with our program as a registered lobbyist. I make sure that we’re raising enough money, finances are flowing correctly, our board is meeting, our employee handbook is right, managing staff and policies, and making sure that everyone’s working together; all those sorts of things are among my responsibilities as executive manager. That is a piece of it. Taking a look at a week in my life is interesting right now. Mondays tend to be the days when I’m in Chicago with my Chicago staff. On Mondays, I meet with all 20 of our staff. I check in with my four directors: our development, communications, finance, and programs and policy leads. I’m meeting with those four people and just figuring out what’s going on: what issues they’re facing and what they need help with; that takes up a lot of the day. On Tuesdays, I usually head down to Springfield and prepare for a day of lobbying the state legislature. There’s a bit of a schedule to Tuesdays, because on Tuesdays at around 4 p.m., the House Energy and Environment Committee meets. Once I arrive in Springfield, I’m usually chasing down votes from people I haven’t talked to already that need to vote for something to get out of committee. We then have the committee meeting and run everything through to see how it goes. Sometimes there’s really exciting things.

Last week, we moved a crucial bill banning Styrofoam, which I’m so excited about, and I really believe we’re going to be able to at least move it out of the House*. On Wednesdays, we have some committee meetings, usually only with one or two bills. Thursdays usually have Senate Energy and Senate Environment meetings. Our staff splits up and goes to those different committees. There are receptions and dinners that I attend in the evenings to network with lawmakers and other lobbyists to make sure that I’m kept up to date on anything that might be going on. I really enjoy that work. In the 48 hours spanning from Tuesday at noon to Thursday at noon, we get a lot of things done. Friday and Saturday are spent wrapping things up, making sure that we’re writing something to go out to our email list to keep people updated. On Friday, IEC hosts a call with dozens of our member organizations, such as NRDC, Sierra Club, and Faith in Place, as well as many community-based organizations and issue organizations to discuss the priorities for the week. I spend the rest of Friday trying to prepare for the upcoming week in terms of legislation, and anything we might need to do in terms of key funder updates. That’s usually how January through May works. We don’t have legislative session after May, so it’s a little less exhausting then.

 

KT: What do you do for the rest of the year?

JW: That time is spent focusing on relationships. We do a lot of partnership building with our member affiliates, going to different member organizations.

There’s a lot of staff management and fundraising work that I do the rest of the year—especially fundraising. We have a big gala in September that we spend months preparing for. I also try to do a lot of fun stuff with lawmakers. We like to take them on farm tours and canoe trips, we all go down to a trip to Southern Illinois every year. In my personal life, I go to a lot of fundraisers and galas, because it is crucial to build those relationships with lawmakers. I do a lot of politics outside of work to help me be better at my job during the day.

 

KT: What are some of the current key legislative priorities on IEC’s radar? What have you worked on in the past and do you have any plans for future priorities?

JW: I’ve got a whole document of bills that we focus on, but I can give you a few  examples. We’re really prioritizing environmental justice, and we have a big bill about the cumulative impact of air pollution sources that we hope to get passed this year. We got it out of the House last year, but we haven’t gotten around to the Senate yet because it keeps running into problems there. Regarding transportation, we’re very focused on the electrification of the transportation sector, specifically public transit buses, school buses, trucks, and cars. We’re also working a lot on pedestrian safety and public transit. We’re talking a lot these days about carbon capture and storage in the energy realm. We have a bill that proactively regulates this process to protect landowners and the environment. We’re also always working on natural gas and how to transition buildings off natural gas, so that’s a big one. In terms of sustainable agriculture, we’re working on strengthening restrictions on pesticides or increasing violations for pesticides that have been sprayed improperly.

One of the bills I mentioned earlier, which is a huge one, involves working on Styrofoam. We really would like to ban it this year, so we’ve been focusing a lot of our efforts on the polystyrene ban. I would say energy and plastics are what we spend the most time on. We are working on bills regarding composting, flooding, resiliency, recreation in waterways. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are also a huge concern this year. The bottom line is that there are always a lot of priorities.

 

KT: What is your favorite part of working as the executive director of IEC, and what do you find most rewarding about the work you’ve done?

JW: My favorite part is when a big bill passes and has such a huge impact on the people of the states that we work with. We passed the Climate & Equitable Jobs Act in 2021, and this bill was incredibly important to the whole state; it will move Illinois to 100% clean energy by 2045. This is not even something I would have even dreamed about ten years ago. And here we are passing it, signing it into law, and then watching all the jobs that have been created from it, especially in disinvested communities. That type of work where you are able to do something that has a real impact on people and organizations is easily the best part of this job.

 

KT: On the other hand, what do you find most challenging about the work that you do?

JW: I get really frustrated when people just don’t do the right thing. I keep reading about PFAS and the impacts that they have on human bodies. These are forever chemicals, meaning that they don’t break down in the environment or in our bodies, and we just keep making them and putting them in everything. They’re in our bodies and already leading to serious negative health impacts. That frustrates me. We’re not making progress faster on that. It’s incredibly challenging, knowing the right policy outcomes, but not having the right politics to get something done.

 

KT: What are some of your professional goals within or even outside of the IEC?

JW: I love this job. At some point in time, I would love to take on a role with more responsibility and power as an agency director or somebody at a state or federal government agency working to make a difference. I think there’s so much that government can do, especially if you have the right people who are proactive in those seats. I teach a class at the university (NRES 499) every other fall. I’d love to eventually teach more, but that’s likely a little bit after I do all this stuff. It would be really rewarding to share those experiences and train people to move forward with advocacy and lobbying, which are rarely taught in schools.

 

KT: What are your goals for the future of the Illinois Environmental Council?

JW: I want to get high-quality staff and pay them well. We don’t necessarily have to be a large organization. I want to make it easier to pass great environmental laws in Illinois. However, hiring great people and paying them well and giving them a great place to work where we can make an impact is the most important thing to me.

 

KT: You work closely with certain groups and programs at the University of Illinois. Can you tell me about some of your experiences with students and student groups here?

JW: Anything from working with students that want to shadow me to my experience on the advisory boards for the Environmental Leadership Program and the Prairie Research Institute. There are a lot of places where I like to stay plugged in at the University of Illinois and with NRES. I love to make sure that students, especially science students, are bringing their voices into state government. That is always exciting, especially to see the way that students quickly pick this up and want to move forward with it. It was so great last year when we brought the ELP students to the state capitol. It was one of the first days that the public was even allowed back in the state capitol after the pandemic, and it was so exciting for everybody. The lawmakers were just thrilled to see them be there on behalf of the policies that they cared about. I know that they made an impact with that. It’s great to see where students want to go, and I hope students don’t get frustrated at how terrible government is sometimes, because we do have the ability to change it and move it more in the direction that we need to do things like solve the climate crisis.

 

KT: What can students do if they’re interested in getting involved with environmental policy and advocacy or lobbying?

JW: Students can start with policy and advocacy lobbying right there on campus. They can think about things that they want to change and put together campaigns to move towards those changes. Oftentimes you can make a big difference just by asking for something to change, and then pushing and asking again and again and again. I’m just really excited by the students that want to do that and the changes that they’re making on campus.

 

KT: Why is it important for students to get involved with environmental policy and advocacy lobbying?

JW: I can directly relate my career to my time at Students for Environmental Concerns, even more so than with the university. I mean, I love the U of I, and my degrees, and NRES. But my work as SECS is most directly responsible for what I’m doing today. I think that it’s a perfect way to get initial experience if folks want to do that as a career, or even just as something on the side. Advocacy at all levels makes the difference. It’s really satisfying. For instance, I can compost at home, but if I can pass that first commercial food scrap composting law in Illinois, I can have hundreds of thousands—if not millions of people, composting.

 

KT: Finally, what are some of your hobbies? Interests, passions, anything outside of work? 

JW: I do work a whole lot, but I like to spend a lot of my time outside of work with quiet time. I have a 14-year-old standard poodle named Sally who is amazing, and she comes with me to Springfield sometimes. I also do a lot of sewing, yoga, running, and cookie baking — anything that’s kind of quiet — in my off time to relax.

 

* Editor’s note: At the end of legislative session, the Styrofoam bill (HB2376) passed through the Illinois House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate. The Senate agreed to SB58, a bill that will ban Styrofoam for state agencies and universities starting Jan. 1, 2025, and their vendors on Jan. 1, 2026.