On March 10 and 11, IHS Model UN attended the United Nations Association of Rochester (UNAR) conference at St. John Fisher College. Model UN is a mock demo of the actual United Nations, where high-school students step into the shoes of delegates from different member countries and debate the most pressing issues of the world. It provides an opportunity for students to follow UN procedures and work cooperatively with students from the region to resolve conflicts.
In their respective committees, Asha Duhan ’19, Samson McKinley ’18, Erin Hilgartner ’17 and Nathan Subramaniam-Souchet ’18 won “Best Delegate” and Ruth Silcoff ’17 won “Outstanding Delegate.” In terms of in-committee awards, Julius Stroock ’19 and Zoe Zentner ’20 won “Best New Delegate” and Meghana Gavirneni ’19 and Adam Zhang ’18 won “Honorable Mention.”
In addition, Bella Culotta ’17, Max Fink ’17, Sarah Couillard ’17, and Alison Ke ’17 served as chairs in their committees, acting as some of the top foreign dignitaries in Model UN. Chairs have the responsibility to conduct committees and assign awards at the end. Although they didn’t win an award, Alexandra Gibbons ’18, Veda Chickermane ’19, Chloe Cerione ’18, Cameron Grover ’18, Martin Jander ’17, Meera Bai Singh ’19, Oscar Sudilovsky ’20 and Zoe Marschner ’19 displayed exceptional work at the UNAR conference.
After the conference, Fink, IHS Model UN co-president, summed up the results of the conference: “This year has been difficult because we’ve had the most Ithaca chairs and yet also had the fewest underclassmen in our club. It’s been a challenge to find a way to educate and train people, and I think we did extraordinarily well this conference.” Fink also said that it was “a harder conference, because the first day was filled with large powerhouse schools.” Despite IHS being one of the smaller delegations, Ithaca delegates won a disproportionately large amount of awards, as exemplified by their strong outing at UNAR.
Singh, a new member of Model UN, said, “I had an incredible experience. I met a plethora of wonderful new friends, stepped out of my comfort zone, better learned how to collaborate with others, and learned new decision-making skills.” Model UN is able to provide members with not only a learning experience, but also an opportunity to meet like-minded, passionate high-schoolers who care about the world.
The next major conference IHS plans on attending will be held from April 20–23. Select members of IHS Model UN will attend the Cornell Model United Nations Conference (CMUNC), an intensive experience lasting over the duration of spring break.
Model UN meetings are held every Thursday in F4 after school and guided by advisors Michael Reiff and Matthew Prokosch.