Students from Milligan’s Model United Nations with their awards. Photo provided by Kennedy Weber
Milligan College’s Model United Nations team walked away from their annual Southern Regional Model United Nations (SRMUN) competition with the most awards they have ever earned this past weekend.
The group of nine students won Distinguished Delegation as a whole and received four other awards for specific committees.
“They did phenomenally; I was really proud of them,” advisor for Model U.N., Dr. Amy Edmonds said. “They brought enthusiasm, worked hard, took initiative, and all of those things helped them succeed.”
The competition is a simulation of the meeting of the United Nations, and each college represents a different country. This year Milligan chose Colombia.
“We chose Colombia because of all that is happening in Venezuela, their neighboring country,” senior Somang Lee said. “We wanted to know if and how they differed policy-wise, and also if they were being affected by the chaos in Venezuela.”
After schools choosing a country, the students are split up into different committees with topical themes where they collaborate with other students from different colleges to come to policy resolutions.
“The most important part was to gather different opinions to make the paper clear and specific,” junior Ronan Phillipot said. “You also have to listen to people and make sure that their language fits into the resolution. It’s very important to their ego.”
The nine Milligan students that went were primarily Political Science majors who have an interest in a certain topic, but any student can join.
“It’s about international relations, politics, education, corruption, sustainability, women’s rights,” Lee said. “Poli-Sci majors are usually attracted to Model U.N., but we were happy to have Louis and Ronan because it’s really for anyone,” she said.
Each week the one credit hour class would meet on Tuesday nights from 8 to 9:30 pm where Edmonds would teach students about what the competition would look like and what they needed to do for it. The work consisted of paper writing, critical thinking and analysis of situations and speeches.
“I joined because I thought it would be good experience, but I came to know everyone better and meet so many new people which makes it that much better,” junior Bryan Lay said.
Awards were as follows:
Senior Kennedy Weber and Ronan Phillipot (Commission on the Status of Women): Best Delegation
Senior Tessa Stevenson and Bryan Lay (General Assembly Plenary): Best Delegation
Senior Louis de la Torres and senior Reagan Jeffers (Group of 77): Most Diplomatic
Somang Lee (Organization of American States): Honorable Mention Award