Midwestern State University’s Model United Nations team earned recognition at the national conference held in New York City earlier this month. For the second time in three years, the team earned an Outstanding Delegation Award, the highest honor at the conference, which draws teams from around the globe. They represented the country of Nepal at the competition.

Individually, MSU Texas earned two Outstanding Position Paper awards. Emily Beaman, a political science major, and Andrea Repici, pre-med, won for their work in the United Nations Environmental Assembly, and Gabriella Pettijohn, an economics major, and English major Brandon Goins won for their work in the General Assembly Second Committee.

This year’s conference was significant because it marked the full return to normalcy following the COVID-19 disruption, including the honor of meeting in the UN General Assembly building for the first time in four years. That made the success even more meaningful to the students.

The Model UN team is comprised with students from all six colleges at MSU Texas, and this multi-disciplinary make-up was instrumental to the success. Political science major Zetta Cannedy served as head delegate. Student preparations began in the fall semester and included many hours of independent, extensive research and writing. Model UN students tasked with creating position papers, which are one to two-page documents representing Nepal’s position on key policy questions.

MSU Texas has earned the Outstanding Delegation award three times, and this showing establishes the team as one of the most successful programs in the last few years. The team was recognized before the entire conference in the General Assembly building of the United Nations.

The student commitment to the Model UN conference is impressive, as the proceedings began with breakfast and typically did not end until well after midnight.

Associate Professor of Political Science and Model UN team sponsor Steve Garrison said achieving an Outstanding Delegation Award indicates that in each committee, MSU Texas team members were the leaders of the proceedings at each step of the process, a significant accomplishment given the level of competition. It marked the sixth straight year MSU Texas was recognized for honors at the national conference. Garrison said more than half of the attendees are from larger schools and from outside of the United States, indicating that MSU Texas students are leaders among their peers at an international level.