This past weekend, from Jan. 6 to the 8, SPFHS students attended the Model United Nations Conference at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Students, otherwise known as delegates, came home with the satisfaction of being awarded with “Outstanding Delegation” and many awards.
Model United Nations, also recognized as MUN, is a national program that SPFHS has been involved in for several years now, having over 60 students participate this year. This program gives students the opportunity to assimilate what occurs at the actual United Nations. Delegates are either assigned a country or a court case and meet with other delegates to create resolutions, discuss issues, and make relationships throughout the weekend.
Wayne Neal, senior at SPFHS and first-year delegate, thought [MUN] helped with his public speaking.
“I found this program to help[ed] me get out of my comfort zone.” said Neal.
Every year the conference reflects a different theme. This year’s theme was Harmony. Senior and fourth-year delegate Justin Greenman reflected on the theme.
“I, like everyone else had to deal with a very divisive year, no matter what your political, social, economic situation,” said Greenman. “Harmony is an ideal. It is not something that we can achieve. It is something that we should strive for, something that I try to strive for.”
Greenman was a part of the International Criminal Court where he and his team had to either defend or prosecute war criminals. His along with his team’s hard work payed off as they won their case.
The following are other awards of students below:
Outstanding Research Paper- Alex Joshua
Outstanding Research Paper- Matt Lozito
Outstanding Research Paper- Vaishnavi Ramanan
International Criminal Court Premier Delegate- Justin Greenman
Conference on National Affairs (CONA) Delegate- Alison Zimmerman
CONA Alternative- Deblina Mukherjee
For the upcoming conference in January 2018, advisors Brooke Wagner and Erin Sassaman chose Juniors Brian McGowan, Brandon Glickstein, Danielle Glickstein, Nate Redmount, Avery Greenberg and sophomore Giancarlo Castro to become the new Youth Secretariats who help prepare next year’s students for the conference.
As this is Greenman’s last year at the conference, he reflected with some words for students.
“I would recommend that everyone joining Model UN, even if you are not interested in International Affairs,” said Greenman. “I am not really, that is not my specialty. It is still such a great and fun thing to do. It prepares you for life when you have to deal with real complex issues.”
