Schools

Model UN Club Finds Success at Yale

by Kathleen Boland

In the Iranian Expediency Council at Yale’s 38th annual Model United Nations Competition, junior Jeff Netting represented Abbasali Kadkhodai.  His council faced the challenges of negotiating Iran’s hegemonic rise in the Middle East. As leaders of the antion, the Council’s task was to promote the nation’s development and security, which meant tackling the domestic calls for democracy, the weak oil market, and an increasingly hostile international environment, all while staying true to the Islamic tenets upon which this great country was founded.  Netting said, “It was by far the most interesting committee I have been on.  We had nukes stolen by rebels, we entered a war on the United States, and there was an attempt on my life.”

Twenty-two students from Trumbull High School’s Model United Nations club spent four days with over 1,400 students from around the world discussing similar world issues at various committees in Yale University’s Model United Nations competition. Netting was one of seven THS students that applied for specialized committees at Yale. Juniors Ryan McEniry and Rachel Son took part in the Congress of Vienna, a historical cabinet that dealt with a number of thorny problems that had arisen in the aftermath of the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars. Junior and President of Trumbull’s Model UN club Brandon Capece represented businessman Lorenzo Zambrano as he took part in a special Mexican Anti-Drug Trafficking Task force.  Capece, who took home the Honorable Mention award, said, “YMUN this year was better than ever. I finally participated in a crisis committee, which was a completely new experience. In a crisis committee, there are many challenges that are presented to us at critical moments, and so I learned how to deal with complications and consequences for acting a certain way within a high stress environment.”

Seniors Michael McGuigan, Rachel Laffitte, and Silvia Sclafani took part in the United Nations Security Council that debated nuclear weapons in the Middle East and dealt with various crises presented upon itself during the conference.  Laffitte said, “as a premiere conference, YMUN attracts the best of the best.  My favorite part of YMUN was the special guests.  Yale students became President Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez and they were entertaining and at the same time sparked the debate into new directions.”  McGuigan, the vice-president of the club, took home the Honorable Mention award for the second year in a row.

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In the end, Trumbull High School took home four awards at Yale.  This was the most awards in school history and Trumbull was the only public school in Connecticut to receive awards. Senior Alexa Hiznay took home the 2nd place Outstanding Delegate award for her work as Germany in UNICEF and junior Evan LeClair received Honorable Mention for his work as Germany in ECOFIN (Economic and Financial Affairs Council). 

Other members of Trumbull’s Delegation at Yale included the following:  freshmen Anthony Masi III and Dan Netting, sophomores TJ Ieronimo, Chitra Nidadavolu and Rakshana Selvarajan, and juniors Kevin Bielicki, Chris LoBosco, Marissa Piccolo, and Mellina Silver, and seniors Jennifer Bont, Quynh-Lan Dao, Kathleen Hickey, and Thomas Keane.

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I am so proud of the students from Trumbull High School. They were able to research their countries and learn invaluable life skills such as public speaking techniques, the ability to respond quickly and accurately to posed questions and the ability to defend their answers with confidence.  We couldn’t have done this without the support from the administration at Trumbull High School and the ACE Foundation (Trumbull Academic Challenge for Excellence Foundation).

Katie Boland, Club Advisor


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