Preparation paid off for the 21 students in West High School's Model United Nations class as they returned home earlier this month with the trophy for Best Prepared School.
The students competed with more than 600 students from 25 schools around the Midwest and Ontario, Canada, at the Mid American Model United Nation competition, held March 7-11 in Battle Creek. The competition featured numerous real-world situations, problems and crises for students to solve as they showcased their research, leadership and networking skills. Teams from the schools ranged in size from six to 70 students.
The students spent the first days of the conference in committees, representing their countries and trying to get resolutions passed. The final days of the competition brought all students together for the General Assembly.
"It was an awesome experience," said Dan Watson, a senior at the school who plans to study business next year at Grand Valley State University. "The key to doing good is being prepared and a lot of credit goes to Mr. Rennie, he's a really good teacher."
This is the only the second year that Charles Rennie has taken a contingent of West students to the event but already the standard has been set for future delegations. Previously, he interned with Al Kniss, a retired teacher who was a strong supporter of the program in Traverse City whose teams also brought home many awards.
"What they did is a huge accomplishment," said Rennie, a modern history teacher at West. "During the event, I knew the kids were doing well but you never can tell what's going to happen in the end because it's very difficult to figure out how the judges are going to go."
In addition to the overall team effort and award, the following students also received individual acclaim:
n The Greek delegation of Kerry Fleet, Jamie Furstenberg, Nick Glauch, Dan Watson and Andrew Winter won highest honors for best represented country
n Jamie Furstenberg received second highest honors in the Social, Humanitarian & Cultural Committee
n Nick Glauch received second highest honors in the Political Committee
n Dan Watson representing Greece, Andrew Hainen representing Switzerland and Jalel Nadji representing Kenya each won best delegate in a crisis simulation
n The Kiribati delegation of Martin Franke, Casey Lawrence, Aleksey Raskhodchikov and Damien Stonick won second highest honors for best represented country
n Geoff Bloom won highest honors and Martin Franke won second highest honors in the Legal Committee
n David Engstrom won highest honors and Aleksey Raskhodchikov won second highest honors in the Economic Committee
In addition to meeting daily in class since the second semester began, students also met two days a week after school to prepare. They researched the countries they would represent and drafted resolutions to bring to the meeting.
"I would say I've learned about other countries policies and it's really interesting to hear about how other countries react to situations, to hear about events that I wouldn't normally talk about," said Jamie Furstenberg, a senior who took the class as an independent study.
Senior Nick Glauch qualifies as being avidly interested in these topics and declared that at the Model United Nations he was in his element.
"For a kid like me who's not in varsity sports, I was really touched by having some proof that I am good at what I do," said Glauch, a senior who plans to study either international relations or political science next year at either Georgetown or the University of Michigan.
The team also included five foreign exchange students at the school, students from Russia, Germany, Mexico, Zambia and France. For the American members of the team, it was invaluable to have the perspective of these students as they prepared for the event, worked in committee or lobbied for resolutions in the General Assembly.
"Aleksey [Raskhodchikov] was able to give me the real Russian perspective," said Glauch, who represented Greece. "The night after I started having opposing sides with the Russian delegate, he was able to help out."