Troy High School’s Model UN program promotes leadership and problem solving

TROY — Students involved with Troy High School’s (THS) Model United Nations team are able to travel to different parts of Michigan and other parts of the United States to develop their leadership skills and confer with others about different issues.

According to the United Nations’ website, Model UN provides opportunities for hundreds of thousands of students to engage in simulations to learn more about the principles of the UN and how it functions. Students may gain skills in public speaking, debating, and negotiating as they study a wide variety of topics that they can discuss with students from other schools.

“Every conference that we register for, the students get assigned a specific committee, and sometimes we’re assigned in multiple committees, and then within that committee, you’re assigned a specific country,” Jacqueline Ciolek, an English Teacher at Troy High and Model UN advisor, said. “So sometimes you might represent the same country multiple times, but a lot of times it varies from conference to conference.”

Among Troy High’s members are Julia Triculescu, Aarush Kulkarni, Atul Ganesh,Vinaya Gunasekar and Shivani Angadi.

Triculescu was inspired to join Model UN in ninth grade after finding out about the program through her school’s club fair.

“I’d never heard of Model UN before coming to high school,” Triculescu said. “I went to a very small middle school and it didn’t have clubs, and I saw that it was an international relations club and you got to travel. That seemed very interesting to me, so I just showed up at our first meeting and that was that.”

Kulkarni moved to the area at the start of middle school and found out about it via discussing the different clubs offered with friends while at Boulan Park Middle School.

“One of them was Model UN and I never heard of it,” Kulkarni said. “They said ‘you’d go great in Model UN,’ so I tried it out. I just showed up for a meeting and then I really liked it, so I just decided to stick with it.”

Ganesh has been involved in Model UN since he attended Boulan Park Middle School.

“I’ve always had an interest in, like, foreign affairs and stuff like that,” Ganesh said. “So, that combined with the fact that I really liked my sixth grade social studies teacher . . . who was the advisor at Boulan made me want to join the club, and then I guess the rest is history.”

Gunasekar also joined the Model UN in sixth grade at Boulan Park Middle School.

“If you were to meet me then, you would say I was like the shyest, most quiet kid,” Gunasekar said. “I knew nothing about international relationships, but my older brother did Model UN, so my mom was like ‘ok, you do too.’”

Angadi joined her sophomore year of high school, after some of her friends during her freshman year suggested that she could be interested in Model UN.

“I was really interested in public speaking,” Angadi said. “So I guess I got to know about the club because of other Model UN members, and then I just joined and I really liked it.”

In March, 11 Model UN representatives from Troy High School attended the National High School Model United Nations International Conference in New York City, where Troy represented the country of Mozambique, along with 250 other schools. Triculescu and Kulkarni received first-place “Best Delegate” awards, Ganesh was selected as the student speaker for the closing ceremonies to represent his committee room, and the Troy High team earned the second-place award of “Excellence as a Delegation.”

During the event, the students were able to serve on the general assembly, specialized committees and crisis committees. The general assembly is one of the largest committees, as it is meant to simulate the United Nations General Assembly, where delegates may discuss multiple issues.

Crisis committees allow delegates opportunities to negotiate their goals outside the general assembly in a more informal setting, and specialized committees may combine aspects of the other two committees to focus on a specific topic.

Troy High’s group was also able to meet with the permanent representative of Mozambique, Pedro Comissário Afonso, and see the actual assembly in the New York Model UN amphitheater.

While the students were in New York City, they were also able to visit multiple landmarks and enjoy some of the diverse meals that the city has to offer.

“One thing about the entirety of our club is that we all love food,” Gunasekar said. “So one thing that we had the pleasure of being able to do in New York City is be able to try so many different cuisines and like, just famous places that we looked at before we went on the trip.”

“My favorite part was on the last day, on Monday, we had kind of like almost the whole day to just explore New York,” Angadi said. “So we started at Washington Square Park and yeah, we basically went from there and walked all the way down Fifth Avenue.”

“So for me . . . I’m kind of a sports junkie,” Ganesh said. “So, I went to the MLB store and bought myself a Boston Red Sox hat in New York City. It was just fun to do. It was just fun to express ourselves freely outside of (the) committee — like just embrace that kind of mentality.”

“Just having been able to experience New York in a little slice of New York …  kind of like not in a rush in anything,” Kulkarni said. “It was really a meaningful experience to me.”

Earlier this month the Troy High School Model UN delegation competed at Oakland University’s Model UN conference, where the team brought home 25 awards, including third place overall as a large delegation. At the conference, 21 of the team’s delegates placed individually.

Those receiving recognition included Bhavisha Santhosh Kumar and Lana Fargaly (first place, Best Delegate - Gavel Award); Ahmad Bokhari, Bhavisha Santhosh Kumar, Henrik Karstensen, Kate Berghea, Lana Fargaly, Maya Al-Qas Hanna, Nishi Bergi, Zahra Rahman and Zaid Iftikhar (second place, Superior Delegate Award); Jude Carras-Restum, Kashvi Mohan, Rachel Jose, Rudra Jariwala, Sara Yousufuddin, Shalini Srinivas, Shraddha Shoraff and Shriya Doddaguni Harish (third place, Outstanding Delegate Award); Areeb Raed, Iris Kerges, Jonathan Pinon and Nivedha Suresh (fourth place, Excellent Award); and Shraddha Shoraff (fifth place, Position Paper & Book Award).

“Even though it might not be reflected in something like the activities list of a college application or something like that, there’s so many intangible skills that you can learn just by doing Model UN,” Ganesh said. “It’s because of Model UN and the skills that it’s given me that I’m no longer scared to play in front of my band director for an audition; it’s because of Model UN and the many, many intangible skills that it’s given me that I’m able to speak to my section when I’m teaching music or something like that; (and) it’s because of Model UN and the skills that it’s given me that I’m able to speak more confidently to my parents, my younger brother, to everyone else I know.”

“In our generation, I think it’s so important to be able to speak up, and Model UN not only helps introduce you to that, but it helps you be the best at that and use that skill to become a better person for yourself and the people around you,” Gunasekar said.

For more information, visit www.troy.k12.mi.us.