Atlanta Student Receives National Sierra Club Award

SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 24, 1999 – An Atlanta resident who is a sophomore at Harvard was among those receiving awards from the national Sierra Club this year.

Elizabeth Hagan was the recipient of the Club’s Joseph Barbosa Earth Fund Award, which recognizes people under the age of 30 who demonstrate a commitment to protecting the environment. The award includes a $2,000 cash prize funded by Dr. Joseph Barbosa of Minnesota. Hagan received the award at the Sierra Club’s annual awards banquet in San Francisco.

Hagan was nominated for the award for her work with the Sierra Student Coalition, the student arm of the Sierra Club. Hagan took a year off from school to organize several campaigns for the Sierra Student Coalition, including a campaign to save the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, and a campaign to preserve the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

She also organized the Coalition’s first Public Lands Action Summit in Washington, D.C., and worked with the Sierra Club of British Columbia to plan the Sierra Club Rainforest Bus Tour that went to colleges in the eastern United States.

"Elizabeth is a rising star in the environmental movement," said David Karpf, national director of the Sierra Student Coalition.

Hagan transferred to Harvard this fall from the University of Georgia. She plans to major in public policy with an environmental concentration. She credits her involvement with the Sierra Club with helping set her on her future career.

The Sierra Student Coalition will use the money from Elizabeth’s award to sponsor its second Public Lands Action Summit.

The Sierra Club, which was founded in 1892 by John Muir, is the country’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. It currently has nearly 600,000 members. For more information on the Sierra Student Coalition, write them at P.O. Box 2402, Providence RI 02906.