Model UN Team Brings Home Wins
Each spring, over 5,000 college students travel to the National Model United Nations conference in New York City to discuss and engage in current global issues.
The conference encompasses four days of simulated committee sessions, which allows team members to confront a wide-range of topics and create real-world resolutions from the perspective of their assigned country or organization.
This year, Cal Poly Pomona’s 2016 National Model United Nations team played the role of Mexico and captured the Distinguished Delegation award, while team members Dalia Martinez and Paola Quezada shared an award for Outstanding Position Paper.
In addition to the two awards, the team had four students selected for leadership positions at the conference. Team members Travis Barrett, Jose Contreras, and Carly Owens were assigned the role of rapporteur, while Daniel Castillo served as the chairman of a committee. Owens and Castillo were also chosen to be the head delegates of the CPP NMUN team.
“Looking back at how much I've learned in the three year's I've participated makes me so thankful for NMUN,” says Owens, a fourth-year communication major. “Being in the kind of situation where you're constantly looking at things from different global perspectives and working with people from different backgrounds has helped me appreciate diversity in a whole new way.”
For this year’s conference, which took place on March 20-24, the 24-student team began preparing for the conference during winter quarter by researching Mexico’s current stance on multiple issues and the current global political climate.
The team also attracted students from a variety of majors, such as political science, communication, business, ethnic and women’s studies, liberal studies, and apparel and merchandise management.
During the conference, the team represented Mexico in multiple committees and collaborated with other delegates to create working resolutions. Some of the issues the committees worked on addressed peacekeeping, social and economic development, drug trafficking, terrorism, and human rights.
Additional team members included William Acosta, Emily Ayo, Success Carter, Rima Haggar, Tara Kwan, Jasmine Leiva, Ernesto Martinez, Joshua Palacios, Lana Rayan, Wilma Rodriguez, Tiffani Sainz, Ferry Santoso, Sarah Saucedo, Cayley Sublette, April Tayrien, Kimberly Vongnalith, Christen Williams, Steven Zhang.