Storrs, Connecticut, on a cold and windy night on the Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, was where 14 A@E students on the Model United Nations (UN) team spent a long night preparing for their competition. There were seniors, juniors, and even some sophomore as well as supervisors John Cirilli and Mindy Rochman who arrived at the University of Connecticut brimming with excitement for the following days’ event: the first Model UN competition for the 2014 – 2015 school year.

“Well, it’s a simulated United Nations,” Ms. Rochman explained, “They are divided up by different committees and given different topics and they have to solve the world’s problems. They spend most of their time in committees and work on these problems.”

The team worked from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m for both days of their competition.

“We had six committee sessions,” sophomore Elaina Kasantsidia said. “Each varied from two to three hours and during each session we would debate.”

Each of these committees would have two issues to work on. For example, The Commission on the Status of Women worked on the issue of Victim Blaming and Poverty of Single Women and The World Health Organization discussed the Global Use of Vaccines and Mental Health in Relation to Trauma and Violence.

Even after the day ended, students had to research any issues that came up and were new to them so that they could set up their position for the following day.

The Model UN team lost quite a few members from last year through graduation, making the current team members younger.

“It would be unfair to compare the numbers over the years because the membership is in a rebuilding stage.” Ms. Rochman explained.

Still, this competition was very successful. According to Miss Rochman, five students won awards: Estaban Coellar, Daewon Lee, Dylan Majsiak and Julia Tache won “Best Delegate” awards and Ankit Shingala won “Most Improved Delegate.” Four other team members won “Honorable Mentions.”

The current team has 40 members and is preparing for the next competition at the University of Delaware in February.