On November 4, Model UN competed in their first conference of the year at Carthage College. This is the 23rd annual conference held at Carthage College, and this year marks the tenth year that Shorewood High School has participated in the event. Shorewood’s Model UN club, led by Mr. Schmidt, represented a variety of different countries at the conference.

Model UN is a simulated version of the actual United Nations, involving students across the country instead of national representatives. The students are put into different conferences that focus on current world issues, and each are given an involved country to represent. 

“Students aren’t representing themselves and their views on the issue, they represent the views of the country they have been assigned to,” Schmidt said.

The students prepare for the conference beforehand, gathering evidence and data from the countries they represent in order to better represent what their country would support in real life. The students meet throughout the day to discus the issues and come up with laws or ideas relating to the topic. They then vote on the laws, and end up passing a resolution to finish the discussion.

“The students have researched their topic, and they all try to come together to pass a resolution.” Said Schmidt.

Sebastian Pollock, senior and vice president, believes that the Carthage conference was a great way to start the season and expand upon previous knowledge of Model UN.

“For a lot of people, Carthage is seen as the warmup event for the year. It’s very relaxed, and is probably my favorite conference,” Pollock said. 

On the security council in which Shorewood represented the United States, the topic of the conference was the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, a very pressing issue for the U.N. conference. This marked the first time that Shorewood had been allowed to represent a nation with veto power on the security council, allowing for the Shorewood delegation to have much more input and influence over the resulting decisions of the conference. 

“Representing the United States on the security council is a big responsibility,” Pollock said. “Thankfully, we never felt the need to use the veto power, since it was a productive and effective meeting. It was an amazing group of people all working together.”

Shorewood also tackled other issues in different committees, such as the General Assembly, Human Rights Council, and the U.N. Women’s Council. Mathew Gandrud, senior, was a delegate for the General Assembly, worked towards passing legislation involving climate change related infrastructure that would help developing countries.

“I think we did a great job,”  Gandrud said. “We ended up passing legislation that helped not only the U.S. but also all of the other countries who we were working with as well.”

Students can receive awards for standout research and discussion activities. Shorewood received awards for both research papers, and for outstanding delegates in topic conferences.

“We had five students win individual awards this year, which is the most we’ve ever had,” Schmidt said.

Awards were received by Andrina Roberts and Ritisha Dey for their research, while Sebastian Pollock, Jonah Javorsky, and Peter Haigh won awards for Best Delegate in their conferences.

After a largely successful conference at Carthage, the Shorewood team looks forward to participating in the annual Harvard conference in late January and the Northwestern conference in April.