Spring Break
Model UN clinches 1st place in recent debate
Roger Sauerhaft
Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: Campus
During the final weekend of October, Miami University's Model United Nations (UN) team traveled to Cleveland and took first place in the Lake Erie Model United Nations Conference (LEIMUN) to kick off their year.
According to a press release, the victory at the 17-school conference-which involved approximately 200 students over four days-marked the second consecutive year in which Miami has come out on top at LEIMUN. This year, however, Miami shared their first place honors with Case Western Reserve University.
For this first conference of the year, as seen in the press release, Miami sent the largest delegation to the committee, with 30 competitors. Of these 30 RedHawk delegates, only six or seven were returning, as about two thirds were brand new, according to Ian Rexroad, undersecretary of communications for the organization.
Rexroad credits the high turnover rate to students going abroad, but feels that this just shows the team's success since the team is still doing well-even without some of their experienced members.
"In my three years in the organization, not only did we get a lot of new recruits for the team, but their interests in the subjects that Model UN deals with is just exponential compared to the class I was admitted into," said Rexroad, a senior double majoring in foreign affairs and mass communication. "This year was just phenomenal for the first-years we got and part of that is Miami rising in stock."
While at LEIMUN, Miami also took home a handful of individual delegate awards, as 15 members of the RedHawk team received excellent delegate awards. Junior Alex Schoultheis, representing France in the Security Council, also received the rare "superior delegate" award for this work.
Senior Matt Scalf, one of the excellent delegate award recipients, saw the LEIMUN conference as a great victory that also could help for future improvements.
"It's kind of like our warm up conference, so we take a lot of new members to this one," said Scalf, a sociology and philosophy major representing China at LEIMUN. "I personally like this conference better because it's smaller. When I went to (University of Pennsylvania conference), I had a committee that was about 200 people, so it's pretty impossible to get called on unless you have a very important country. This also has smaller committees. It's more regional, as schools from Ohio, Indiana and New York participate, (where) the others are more national with the heavy hitters like Harvard and Yale."
According to a press release, the victory at the 17-school conference-which involved approximately 200 students over four days-marked the second consecutive year in which Miami has come out on top at LEIMUN. This year, however, Miami shared their first place honors with Case Western Reserve University.
For this first conference of the year, as seen in the press release, Miami sent the largest delegation to the committee, with 30 competitors. Of these 30 RedHawk delegates, only six or seven were returning, as about two thirds were brand new, according to Ian Rexroad, undersecretary of communications for the organization.
Rexroad credits the high turnover rate to students going abroad, but feels that this just shows the team's success since the team is still doing well-even without some of their experienced members.
"In my three years in the organization, not only did we get a lot of new recruits for the team, but their interests in the subjects that Model UN deals with is just exponential compared to the class I was admitted into," said Rexroad, a senior double majoring in foreign affairs and mass communication. "This year was just phenomenal for the first-years we got and part of that is Miami rising in stock."
While at LEIMUN, Miami also took home a handful of individual delegate awards, as 15 members of the RedHawk team received excellent delegate awards. Junior Alex Schoultheis, representing France in the Security Council, also received the rare "superior delegate" award for this work.
Senior Matt Scalf, one of the excellent delegate award recipients, saw the LEIMUN conference as a great victory that also could help for future improvements.
"It's kind of like our warm up conference, so we take a lot of new members to this one," said Scalf, a sociology and philosophy major representing China at LEIMUN. "I personally like this conference better because it's smaller. When I went to (University of Pennsylvania conference), I had a committee that was about 200 people, so it's pretty impossible to get called on unless you have a very important country. This also has smaller committees. It's more regional, as schools from Ohio, Indiana and New York participate, (where) the others are more national with the heavy hitters like Harvard and Yale."
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