by Lucky Anguelov February 28, 2020

Lucky Anguelov of Evergreen’s Master of Public Administration program attended the Regional Intergovernmental Organization (RIGO) mini-conference hosted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public And International Affairs (GSPIA). The two-day mini-conference brought together senior leaders and executive directors from multiple RIGOs along with leading scholars and researchers. Together, the group discussed the increased importance of managing regional spaces and the need for enhancing RIGO capacity. To address this need, the funded effort included discussions on competencies and curriculum, certification structure, partnerships with professional organizations, potential course contents, and future research needs as the group develops the online graduate certificate in regional management.

As one of the scholars currently conducting research on multipurpose municipal associations (a form of RIGO) in Southeast Europe, Lucky was active in formulating the comparative future research agenda in the field. In addition, Lucky’s weekend intensive course titled “Culture, Conflict, and International Local Government” taught Winter quarter contributed to the graduate certificate’s course content discussions. In this class, twelve graduate students, a mixture of first and second-year MPA and Master of Environmental Science (MES) students engaged in a negotiation simulation over the course of a weekend while navigating curriculum focused on RIGOs and inter-organizational cooperation.  The students’ efforts were instrumental in discussions regarding the design of a potential RIGO 101 class in the future!