March 24, 2004

CHS model club at contest

photo
Herald photo by Carol South
Members of Traverse City Central High School’s Model United Nations Team returned from the Mid-American Model United Nations Competition with an overall award for best prepared school as well as ten other awards. Twenty students from West High School also attended the event, which was held in Battle Creek from March 9-13 and drew students from more than 300 high schools around the Mid-West. Some members of the Central High School Model UN club are shown, seated, from left: Joel Pier-Fitzgerald, Sam Elliott and Stephen Siciliano. Second row, from left: Minase Tsukiji, Lilit Hovsepyan, Sarah Jennings and Laura Westmaas. Third row, from left: Katherine Lacy, Emily Chauvin, Cat Smith and Claire Posner. Back row, from left: Olivia Gillham, Richard Manner, Joyce Rice and Mike Durban, the club’s coach.

Central students earn top honors at United Nations Competition

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       Traverse City Central High School students returned from the Mid-America Model United Nations Competition with ten highest honors awards and one second honors awards.
      The school's team included 27 students and collectively they received the prestigious Best Prepared School award for their work representing their countries, which included Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Brazil, Gabon and Kazakhstan. In addition, Jacob Norton received the prestigious Jonathan Perry Award and Chelsea Haughn was the runner up for this award.
      The Mid-America Model United Nations Competition was held in Battle Creek and drew students from more than 300 high schools, mostly from Michigan and Ohio.
      Led by advisor Mike Durbin, a French and world history teacher at Central High School, the students completed prepared for the competition on their own. As a club, the students did not have class time to prepare for the event. They studied current events, researched their country and learned United Nations' operating procedures.
      "This was my third year, and boy, they are amazing," said Durbin, a teacher at the school for six years. "The level of professionalism and how well they play their roles, the people who get up to speak have studied their countries well."
      In groups of five, the Central High School students studied their assigned country. They also prepared to serve on one of six committees at the competition: political, special political, social/humanitarian/cultural, economic, legal and security. These committees, as well as the General Assembly, wrestled with topical and timely issues facing the world today.
      "It was a great opportunity to think about the world," said Minase Tsukigi, a senior at the school who aspires one day to work at the United Nations. "You change a lot in four days."
      Cat Smith competed in her third Model United Nations. A graduating senior, this year she was part of a team that represented Kazakhstan; in previous years she was part of a team portraying Iraq and Columbia.
      "I learned about countries and diplomacy, in the real world not just the classroom point of view," said Smith, who plans to study liberal arts next fall at Albion College. "You have to get on the other side and see a different point of view from the United States, then learn to advocate your position and win."
      West High School also sent a team of 20 students to the Model United Nations competition; a team from Leland High School also attended. These students represented the People's Republic of China, India, Egypt, South Korea and Greece.
      Al Kniss, a humanities and political science teacher at West High School, has been taking students to the Model UN for 28 years. He helped bring the program to Traverse City, working previously with St. Francis High School and Central High School. This year, he formed and advised the team of students from Leland High School.
      Although he is retiring from involvement in the program after this year, though not from teaching, Kniss said the program brings many benefits to students.
      "Consistently, from when I first started it, it has been an area for students to do high level thinking," said Kniss, a 31-year teaching veteran. "It is a way for students to be authentically assessed and afforded the opportunity for role playing and looking at world issues from a new perspective. They also debate issues from a high level of knowledge and learn some creative ways to solve problems."
      The Mid-America Model United Nations Competition is one of three events sponsored annually by the Mid-American Global Education Conference. In the fall, the conference holds Canadian-American Security Councils and at the end of April, West High School will host the Traverse City Historical Security Councils.
      Kniss said this event allows students to grapple with previous world crises and compare their solutions to those arrived at by previous United Nations Security Councils.
      "We've done the Suez Canal crisis, the Belgian Congo crisis, the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and the Six Day War," he noted.