Reflections from Scholarship Recipient Karissa Rodriguez | A Day with ICMA Phoenix, AZ
Author: Karissa Rodriguez – Graduate Student, Pepperdine University
Pictured Left: Karissa Rodriguez
My name is Karissa Rodriguez, and I am currently a first-year graduate student at Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy. This year, I was given the opportunity to serve as the Vice President of the ICMA chapter and help restart ICMA here at Pepperdine. Thanks to Dr. Peter Pirnejad and Robert Jordan, they sent the opportunity to attend a Day with ICMA to our chapter President Nataly Luna and me. A Day with ICMA exceeded our expectations, and we got the opportunity to converse with various professionals in local government and meet other fellow student leaders of ICMA from other universities in Arizona. During the conference, we tackled some challenging questions dealing with the new era of city governance considering AI and hyper partisanship within local communities. The topics we discussed were very relevant to the current discussion topics I am learning in courses at Pepperdine. Overall, my experience in Arizona was very enlightening, and I was able to meet great people along the way. I will take what I learned from A Day with ICMA back to where I am a local advocate for my community.
Pictured on the right: Karissa Rodriguez
