Founded in fall 2015, Wheaton’s Model United Nations club regularly sends a team of delegates to compete at events throughout New England. Members of the team have won numerous awards, and the club has steadily grown in stature both on and off campus.
The club’s 20-member delegation attends three conferences a year, though club members take part in numerous “simulation” events on campus. There’s a fair amount of variation in terms of content and structure, but generally speaking, members of the club take on the task of representing particular nations. However, according to club members, Harry Potter, superheroes and ice cream have all been topics of simulations as well. So long as simulation participants are exercising political skills and sensibilities, the topic itself is fairly malleable.
In spring 2017, the club added a new event to its already bustling catalogue. In partnership with the administration, the Model UN executive board invited students from numerous high schools to attend a set of simulation events at Wheaton. Some took on the roles of Bolsheviks in the midst of the Russian Revolution while others worked to draft the American constitution.
According to executive board member Casey Smith ’20, the club plans to repeat the event next semester. All in all, Smith is extremely positive about the club’s future, though she did note that they’ve “been trying to find [their] footing” since the club’s founder, Joshua Kelly, left in spring 2017. However, “things are looking good,” she said.
Smith added that the Model UN team started out strong and has only continued to grow in professionalism and skill. “We definitely want to make the team competitive,” she said, and there are several “really strong new delegates on the team.”
Regarding how much support Model UN is receiving from the school, Smith said that the “administration has been awesome,” and that the club’s advisor, Professor Aubrey Westfall, was “100 percent down for everything we do.” Smith also noted that “the school really respects our growth.”
With the amount of progress Model UN has made so far, it looks like the club will only continue to improve and grow.