Seventy-six students from nine high schools in Michigan and Indiana participated in WMU
The global and international studies program and Western’s student Model UN Club held their First Annual High School Model UN Conference at Western in late April. Over seventy high school students from nine high schools in Michigan and Indiana participated in the event.; “I am thrilled to introduce this terrific program to our university”, declared Dr. Kenneth Steuer, faculty with the global and international studies program.
Students competed in three committees during the conference: a Security Council simulation addressing the nuclear crisis in the Ukraine; a General Assembly Third Committee simulation debating intellectual property rights and access to pharmaceuticals and genetically-modified organisms; and a General Assembly Fourth Committee which negotiated political boundaries over the Spratly Islands, a disputed set of islands in the South China Sea.
The high school students served as delegates of individual countries in each committee and drafted and approved resolutions designed to address these current issues.
Student members of the WMU Model UN Club served as chairs to oversee the diplomatic process. For two days, the delegates wrestled with these real world issues and strove to find potential solutions to these global problems. “We really saw some creativity and innovate solutions coming from the high school students”, observed judge Joyce Busch, who is director of Veteran Affairs at the university.
WMU faculty and staff served as judges and rated the performance of the delegates during the conference. "This is a terrific way for high school students to learn more about Western," said Dr. Susan Pozo, Department of Economics who served as a judge for one of the committees. "It's also really impressive to see these high school students engage with global issues".
While attending the conference, high school student delegates had a chance to experience the campus at Western. They ate meals at Bigelow Dining Hall, the Study Abroad office boasted its offerings of international programs, and the Admissions Office arranged tours of campus.
The global and international studies program and the student Model UN Club plan to expand the conference next spring, and look forward to again collaborating with the UN Association of Kalamazoo. “This event showcases what global engagement at Western is all about”, exclaimed Dr. Laura Hastings, director of the program.