The Model UN team attended the annual Harvard Model UN conference in Boston, Massachusetts from January 30 through February 2. The conference is hosted by college students from Harvard at the Boston Sheraton and Marriott Hotels and is attended by over 3,000 high schoolers from all around the world. The conference has been held since 1953 to give students from different places the opportunity to simulate, discuss, and learn about the real world issues the United Nations handles.
Evan Schmidt, social studies teacher and Model UN advisor, revived the previously dormant club in the mid-2000s while student teaching. Schmidt applied for the conference, and the team has gone every year since then.
“Students can simulate what the United Nations actually do with thousands of students, not just from the states, but around the world who are representing all the different countries of the world,” Schmidt said. “It’s not something that we can organize here at [the school] because of how big we are. It’s very unique in that sense.”
Attending Model UN conferences allows for students to grow in many areas because of its combination of research, communication, and risk-taking.
“I think it’s great for developing interpersonal skills of communication,” Schmidt said. ”It allows students to research topics that are connected to really important global issues that impact the lives of people around the world. I like that there’s a mission of trying to improve people’s lives through diplomacy which is our best tool to mitigate the many problems that our world faces.”
This year, SHS represented Bangladesh and Belgium at the conference. While the whole team represents the same countries, students are divided into different committees to research leading up to the conference.
Maddie Kohler, senior, is the secretary of the Model UN executive board. She, as well as the other members, help lead weekly meetings and educate other club members before conferences.
“The committee that I’m in is on legal policies, specifically [regarding] AI,” Kohler said. “I’ve been looking into what Bangladesh has done so far with AI, what’s the history of it, and then what the proposed solutions are.”
To apply for one of the trip’s limited spots, club members had to submit a position paper from a previous conference and sit for an interview with the executive board. Ryan Wilson, sophomore, attended the trip for the first time this year after having gone on Carthage and Northwestern trips previously. Wilson understood the Harvard trip to be a more rigorous experience.
“Going to Harvard is something that is so prestigious,” Wilson said. “I’m ready and I feel like I’ve done a lot of Model UN to the point where I know what I’m doing. I want to see myself shine in this new area, but that is going to be more difficult because the other people are from all over the world and I know they’re going to be tough.”
Harvard is one of the biggest Model UN conferences in the country, meaning that chosen students must be well-researched and prepared for productive discussion, which can pose new types of hurdles.
“I think learning how to prepare oneself to take heat for different positions is not something that [the students] necessarily have had experience doing before” Schmidt said. “That can be a challenge which students have risen up to in the past, and I would expect our students to do the same for students from other countries who are representing points of view that their countries would not agree with.”
Kohler recounts facing some of this heat at conferences in past years.
“It’s hard going to Harvard specifically because a lot of delegates are what we call ‘power delegates,’” Kohler said. “They like to insert themselves and they’re really harsh. At many other schools, Model UN is a class, so they’re super aggressive and they’ll try to cut you out of [your role], so you have to be strong and unwavering in your opinions.”
Besides attending the conference, the team engaged in other activities in Boston.
“Outside of committee, we toured the Harvard campus and the city center of Boston to see some historical sites of interest in the city,” Schmidt said. “We also spent time together going to a food hall that also had ice skating.”
According to Wilson, the conference allows club members to develop their social skills in a unique setting most don’t experience in their everyday lives.
“I can meet new people and really experience and listen to different stories,” Wilson said. “Representing a country is so cool because you might get something that you don’t know anything about. The topics are just so interesting.”
In addition to learning and researching different topics, the amount of international students that participate can help widen student perspectives.
“My favorite part is that it just follows so many different international students,” Kohler said. “[Last year] I met people from London and I met people from a bunch of small countries.”