Model United Nations (Model UN) is a club where students do research and present as if they are at a real U.N. conference. The club traveled to Johnson County Community College to compete against other schools’ Model UN delegations at the Metro Kansas City Model United Nations Conference Wednesday, April 5.
A total of 17 students attended the event to represent the USA, Poland, Venezuela and New Zealand in different committees, with a total of seven students winning awards. Senior Emma Clement, juniors Shubh Patel and Sophie Hsu and sophomores Barron Fox, Hayden Kelo and Maddie Mulryan won outstanding position paper awards. Clement won a Distinguished Delegate award and senior Olivia Peters won an Outstanding Delegate award, with the school as a whole winning a Best Delegation award.
Sophomore Jordan Powell has been a part of the club for two years. She explains how the Model UN conference worked and what she did to represent her country.
“It’s a bunch of different schools splitting up into individual countries,” Powell said. “They research specific parts of each country. I was on the economics delegation, so I researched Poland’s economics and then we all got together at one conference. We try to network and be diplomatic with one another to pass resolutions to solve the issues at hand.”
The process requires a lot of teamwork to produce a good result, Junior Sophie Hsu was a part of the Poland delegation for this year’s conference.
“Previously we had drafted position papers, which are the perspectives our countries share,” Hsu said. “Then the meeting convenes where we start talking about the solutions that we’ve written or researched about, and then we come together to pass resolutions, which means that we’re going to start solving the issues that we initially researched. Whether it be by passing more renewable energy resolutions, or just looking at energy crises, and looking at how to solve this, we all come together, we start talking in front of other students and we start collaborating.”
Hsu also went last year and thinks her experience this year was better. Students have the opportunity to be resolution sponsors or speakers, but must be able to be confident and knowledgeable to take these opportunities. Hsu believes she was much more involved this year.
“Last year, I was a lot more timid because it was my first year,” Hsu said. “I had a position paper drafted just like I did this year, but the difference was I chose to speak a lot less. Last year, I only gave two speeches. While I was able to make good points, I feel I was limiting myself a lot. This year, I went up and actively gave five or six more speeches. I was able to start talking in front of all these people. I had a really great experience being able to express my ideas and getting support in favor of mine.”
Powell also shared the sentiment that this year was a fun one, especially because she was able to connect with other students interested in public speaking.
