Three evenings ago, I returned to reality from the most fun experience I have had all year. I, along with 45 other members of PA’s Model United Nations club, traveled to Washington, DC, where we attended the annual North American Invitational Model United Nations conference. There, for three days, 2,000 students from 115 schools participated in 33 committees, where they discussed global current events issues. The conference, located in the Hilton close to Washington’s historical sites and Georgetown University, is the largest conference in the Western Hemisphere. It is run entirely by students of Georgetown, including those of its renowned Walsh School of Foreign Service. Delegates spend twenty hours in committee, (roughly double the amount of time that is spent in two days of classes at Andover), during which time they practice and develop the invaluable life skills of rhetoric, debate, negotiation and persuasion. Students make leaps and bounds in development on this trip, far beyond what they would in class, because they are engaged in something they are good at and love to do. Outside of the committee room, students use their time to catch up on schoolwork, work on Model UN resolutions or talk with other delegations, bond with new and old friends, and explore Washington DC. On the free time worked into the committee schedule on Friday morning, some students decided to go to Washington’s historical sites and museums, while many Uppers like myself visited Georgetown University. With that said, it is impossible to say that the Georgetown trip is time idly spent. I, for one, can say without a doubt that I learn and grow more over that weekend than I do any other four days of the year, and I also have the most fun. The Georgetown Model United Nations trip is really the Andover Dream—hands-on, practical learning by students truly passionate about the subject. It almost sounds too good to be true. Last year’s substance abuse scandal threatened the existence of Phillips Academy Model United Nations by nearly canceling the trip. With an understandable reason for letting no PA student ever go away on the trip again, the administration graciously allowed it to go on for another year, provided that the group be cut from 72 students down to 45, and that the list of students be approved by the Dean of Students office. This year, we traveled under the watchful eyes of Dean of Students Marlys Edwards and West Quad South Cluster Dean Peter Washburn and yet we displayed one of the finest performances in PA Model UN history. Andover won the second place overall school award and a total of eleven awards in all five types of committees. This achievement is particularly impressive because PA’s Model United Nations club is completely student-run, as opposed to some other schools where Model UN is offered as a class. After coming home, overjoyed with our performance and behavior on the trip, and already eager for next year, I was greeted with the disconcerting news that one topic of discussion at the faculty and administration’s AdCom meeting was to move student trips like Georgetown to a time when students would not miss classes. According to the faculty and administration’s bulletin, the Andover Gazette, some faculty members were concerned by students’ absences from classes because of trips like Model UN. I feel that a possible decision to force PA Model UN to attend another conference outside of class time is a wrong one. First, student-administration relations are not necessarily as positive as anyone would like them to be, as demonstrated by the immediate reaction to the Head of School Day prank. To cancel such a popular and successful trip (made by one of PA’s largest student organizations, with upwards of 200 members) would only widen whatever rift there is between students and administrators. Second, PA has a great Model UN team, and we deserve to go to Georgetown because it offers the best competition. The NAIMUN conference is run by the United States’ leading university in international politics and foreign service, and includes the best of the best delegates from around the country. There might not even be a conference that doesn’t meet during classes. After some light research, I was unable to find any conferences in the United States that would meet outside of the class schedule, and if there even were one, it would undoubtedly be inferior to the one we currently attend. All the other major university conferences, including those at Harvard, Princeton and Yale, either meet during the winter term or during Assessment Week. The National High School Model United Nations conference, a large conference run by the International Model United Nations Association, takes place during Assessment Week. Any conference besides one of these would not be as good as NAIMUN. Third, in response to teachers’ qualms that students miss too many days of class, one should note that the students choose to go on the trip, cognizant that they will have to work very hard to catch up on the work they have missed, and that it is their grades that suffer. It is the student’s right to sacrifice grades and hours of sleep for something that they are really passionate about and that is an academically enriching experience. Finally, faculty members must consider what they and this school are here to do and the way that the Georgetown trip supplements that goal. I leave you with this excerpt from the academy’s revised Statement of Purpose, voted on in the winter of 2000 by the faculty, which reads, “In its programs, the school seeks to promote a balance of leadership, cooperation and service, together with a deeper awareness of the global community and the natural world.”
