Sitton Award Provides ‘Amazing Opportunity’ for Student Leader

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