Wooster’s Model UN Team Attains Multiple Honors at AMUN Conference

WOOSTER, Ohio – The College of Wooster’s Model UN team collected a series of accolades—a team Position Paper Award and four individual Outstanding Delegation Awards—at the 30th annual American Model United Nations (AMUN) International Conference, held Nov. 21-24, in Chicago.

While the four individual Outstanding Delegation Awards is believed to be the most ever for Wooster’s tradition-rich Model UN team, it is the Position Paper Award that gives Emily Farmer, current president of the student organization, the most pride. Both the 16-member traveling delegation and the similarly-sized research team contribute ideas, research, and resolution writing prior to the conference.

“Each committee had separate topics, and we won the Position Paper Award as the entire delegation across all committees, which meant all our committees contributed to that success,” explained Farmer, a senior urban studies major from Attleboro, Mass. “Because each committee had a different topic, the issues discussed in the Position Papers ranged from the rights of indigenous people to preventing and combatting (human) trafficking … to promoting healthy lives and access to quality health care to the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects.”

The AMUN, as the name suggests, is a professionally-run simulation, with members of each team being part of different UN committees. Via a lottery system, every school is assigned a “member state” (Wooster’s was Kenya this time) months ahead of time, and then delegates prepare for their assigned committee. Following each simulation, the individual Outstanding Delegation Awards are voted on by the members within each committee, and Wooster’s recipients were:

• Senior Brandon Borges, Economic Commission for Africa
• Sophomore Thalia Helweg, International Telecommunication Union
• First-year Tristan Caffrey and sophomore Emmy Todd, General Assembly Second Committee
• Sophomores Rachel Catus and Mohini Sharma, Economic and Social Council

“All our delegates did amazingly, and we’re really proud of their work this semester and excited to continue this work,” noted Farmer.

During the spring semester, Wooster’s Model UN team will prepare for the National Model United Nations (NMUN) conference, which takes place in New York in April.

Posted in News on December 11, 2019.