For the 12th consecutive year, a team of John Jay students has taken on colleges and university institutions from more than 30 countries in the annual National Model United Nations (NMUN) competition, and this year the John Jay team captured the conference’s top honor, the Outstanding Delegation Award.
The weeklong global competition, which brought together roughly 5,500 students, was held March 27-31 at the Sheraton and Hilton hotels in Manhattan.
Each year, NMUN delegations represent a different member state of the United Nations, with John Jay this year representing the Czech Republic. Delegates serve on a number of committees in which they deliberated, negotiated, drafted and adopted resolutions and reports on a wide range of politically sensitive and topical issues. This year’s agenda included topics ranging from agribusiness and environmental governance to cyber security and weapons of mass destruction, among many others.
The Outstanding Delegation award recognizes the overall delegation performance in all committees. John Jay previously won the award in 2007. Team members Asia Shkreli, Suzanne Kowalski, Hanna Amodine and Veranika Basak also won Outstanding Position Paper awards for their work in the UNESCO and Habitat III committees.
The 28-member team’s success is the product of rigorous and systematic training under the guidance and mentorship of Professor Jacques Fomerand of the Department of Political Science. During the fall and spring semesters, the team met for two to three hours every Friday evening, in addition to countless hours of preparation throughout the week. They honed their research skills, drafted position papers, rehearsed public speaking skills, refined their mediating and consensus-building techniques and mastered the intricacies of U.N. procedures.
John Jay’s 2015-2016 NMUN team included students from a variety of academic disciplines and student organizations, led by the United Nations Student Association (UNSA), as well as Presidential interns, Vera Fellows, McNair Scholars, members of the Honors Program and student-athletes.
The NMUN team members , with roots in more than a dozen countries, were: Grace Theresa Agalo-Os, Jamil Ahmed, Madiah Ahmed, Hanna Amodine, Andrea Arturo, Kossi Atchrimi, Badiss Bahlouli, Veranika Basak, Seonae Byeon, Alexis Castillo, Erick Esquivel (president, UNSA), Lodoe Gyatso, Maoly Hernandez, Timur Insanally, Suzanne Kowalski (secretary, UNSA), Stephanie Louis, Rocio Maradiegue(treasurer, UNSA), Gabriella Mungalsingh, Amena Othman, Trushal Pandhi, Izabela Qafa, Muhammad Rehman, Kyle Roberts, Tannuja Rozario, Sidiki Savadogo, Aline Shaban (vice president, UNSA), Asia Shkreli and Jeffrey White.
