The Model United Nations Club earned second place at the 11th annual Boston University Invitational Model United Nations Conference (BosMUN) last weekend. Four Andover students received Best Delegate awards, the highest individual recognition. At the BosMUN conference, hosted by the Boston University International Affairs Association at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, over 1,400 high school delegates debated global issues with peers in 15 mock committees. 35 students from Andover attended the conference, which mirrored diplomatic forums like the United Nations Security Council or the Organization of American States. Despite falling to Cape Coral High School as a group, the majority of Andover participants received individual awards at the competition, according to Charles Horner ’12, Co-President of Model UN. BosMUN presented awards to participants who proved themselves to be the best delegates through public speaking, creative solutions, teamwork and resolution writing. Will Bloxham ’13, Jeremy Chen ’13, MJ Engel ’13 and Abigail Keller ’14 won first place Best Delegate Awards in their committees. Bloxham’s win was his second consecutive Best Delegate Award. This year he was on the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. Chen, who was on the Committee of Economic and Cultural Rights, proposed an original solution to fight global hunger. “I proposed that the UN act as an intermediary between four countries to encourage infrastructure investment,” he said. “Winning was the result of a lot of hard work. It’s a dream come true.” Engel played the roles of two members of the Somalia Transitional Federal Government, a crisis committee. She was assassinated in her first role as the Minister of Labor. She returned to the debate as the Minister of Finance and was put on trial and sentenced to death. Despite having to play the roles of characters with such bleak endings, Engel said that she enjoyed the crisis committee format. “I was really excited that I was going to be in a crisis committee because before I’d only been in General Assemblies, which generally have about 160 people in them. So, I was really excited to be in a smaller committee [of 20 people] because I thought that I’d be able to have more practice debating, and I would be with higher level people, so it would be more intense debate,” said Engel. “I was really surprised when I got [the award], and I was so happy because not only was the committee really fun, but I did really well in it too,” continued Engel. The BosMUN conference was Keller’s first major Model UN event. Keller competed in the United Nations Economics Commission for Europe. Keller’s committee decided to dissolve the European Union and the Euro zone in order to promote economic recovery in the region. In addition, 16 other members received awards at the event. Nolan Crawford ’15, Diana Tchadi ’14 and Gregory Wang ’13 won the Outstanding Delegate award, the second-place recognition. Zoe Chazen ’14, Gabbi Fisher ’13, Graham Johns ’14, David Yoon ’14 and Horner received Honorable Delegate. Rolando Bonachea ’13, Laura Bucklin ’14, Aaron Finder ’13, Maia Hirschler ’13, Clark Perkins ’14, Matthew Simon ’14 and Marcus Thompson ’15 received Verbal Commendations. Rome Arnold ’14 received the Most Improved Delegate award for his committee. Horner said, “We were actually a little bit depleted in terms of our numbers; a good amount of our board couldn’t go. We actually did really well with a bunch of kids that had never done [Model UN] before.” Next year, the Model UN team plans to attend more conferences, especially after the wins last weekend, according to Horner.
