Notre Dame Prep’s Model United Nations team participated at the SEMMUNA conference Saturday at North Farmington High School. The next conference is scheduled for January at Michigan State University. Photo, from left: Mariel Manzor, Nicole Oska, Mary Boltri, Mary Tuski, Michelle Lo and Jordan Jewell.
Upper-division social studies teacher Dave Osiecki, who is moderating Notre Dame Prep’s team, said they represented the school very well.
“Our students represented Singapore on committees that dealt with topics as diverse as urban pollution, endangered languages, the situation in Syria and electronic surveillance,” he said. “We are looking forward to our next conference at MSU at the end of January.”
Michelle Lo, a junior at NDP, was one of the team members most responsible for getting the MUN program up and running at the school, said this first conference experience was a great learning experience.
Notre Dame’s MUN team meet for coffee Saturday morning before their first conference.
Junior Mary Boltri, another member of NDP’s MUN team, also said that the conference was a great experience.
“Although I went with our model UN team representing the country of Singapore, I didn't really get to spend much time with my teammates,” she said. “Instead, I spent most of the day in a room with other delegates who were discussing the same issues as me. We had to communicate the needs of our country in a formal manner and then more casually work together to write a resolution that everyone could agree on. After debates, amendments, voting, and various crises to deal with, we eventually got a resolution passed—complete with the obligatory clapping!”
Boltri said that what she found most interesting was when she realized that sports teams, for example, spend months of bonding and practicing in order to work together properly, “but, my fellow delegates, my team of the day, only had a few brief hours to learn how to work together to accomplish something great. MUN takes a group of strangers and forces them to learn how to be a team. My little team of 25 delegates was definitely one of the coolest and most educational teams I've been on.”
With roots going back to the early 20th century at Harvard University, Model United Nations is a high school- and college-based simulation of the United Nations General Assembly located in New York City. In Model UN, students step into the shoes of ambassadors from UN member states to debate current issues on the organization's agenda. While playing their roles as ambassadors, student "delegates" make speeches, prepare draft resolutions, negotiate with allies and adversaries, resolve conflicts, and navigate the Model UN conference rules of procedure—all in the interest of mobilizing international cooperation to resolve problems that affect countries all over the world.
Other area schools as well as those around the U.S. currently have MUN clubs or teams, including Cranbrook, Roeper, St. Ignatius (Chicago), Dalton (NYC), Trinity (NYC) and Troy High School.
Follow Notre Dame on Twitter at @NDPMA.
About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at
www.ndpma.org.
