Wheaton College’s Model UN (United Nations) team took home awards in three committees participating in Harvard’s Model UN conference this past weekend. Haley Grover ’22 and Mary-Anna Sansone took home a Diplomatic Commendation award representing the Vatican City in the Legal Committee of the General Assembly. 

Amber Wright ’20 took home a Diplomatic Commendation award  representing CARE International in the Non-Governmental Programme. Jeremy Holt ‘’20 took home Best Delegate representing the Chicago Tribune in Press Corps. Diplomatic Commendation is the third tier of award given out at Harvard, with 2-5 being assigned depending on the size of the Committee, and Best Delegate is the fourth tier of award given out at Harvard, with only one being assigned per Committee. 

This acquisition of three awards at Harvard is a landmark event, beating out the Model UN’s team previous record of two awards at Harvard, which was set last year. This is also the first time that Wheaton has won an award in the General Assembly at Harvard, with GA Committees generally being extremely competitive due to them having 200-300 people in them. 

“I had experience from going to previous Model UN conferences having been in a GA at the previous year’s Harvard conference and ensuring that I got my voice out,” Grover said. 

“Almost 20 years of Sunday School helped prepare me for this challenge,” Sasone said. 

“I had to be innovative in my reporting to succeed,” Holt said. “There was a writing course I’d taken at the University of Cape Town which taught me the structure and flow of formal newswriting,” he added. 

According to Wright, research and creativity, particularly in the multimedia and debate fields were crucial to her success “I hope the performance at Harvard will propel Wheaton’s Model UN team into the top 25 ranked teams in the North American MUN Circuit,” Wright said. Wheaton won 27th place last year

“I am unbelievably proud of this group of people,” Wright said. “As someone who has helped to co-lead this team for two years, I see the team moving toward great success and I can only hope the team continues to thrive in the conference setting and continuing to have conversations about real world issues,” she added.