Cortney's Journalism Portfolio

By Cortney St. John
Round Table Broadcast Producer 

From the beginning of a position paper, to points of motion on the floor, with moderated and un-moderated caucuses that follow the final resolution paper, Model UN is always an adventure of debates.

Fourteen Middletown High School students from the Model United Nations (Model UN) club traveled to Baltimore on Feb. 9 for the Johns Hopkins Model United Nations Conference (JHUMUNC).

The conference consisted of 64 high schools participating from 13 states across the country and two international schools: Al-Bayan Bilingual School Kuwait and Colombo International School Sri Lanka.

“The diversity of students, 1,600 from around the country and world, is one of the drawing points of this trip. Differing ideas from students in Texas, Kuwait, or New Jersey make us from Middletown stop and think about our own ideas and ideals,” said MHS Instructional Assistant and Model UN club advisor Karl Helmold.

JHUMUNC was held at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel.

“I like [the conference’s] location. It made it easy not only to enjoy the conference, but enjoy the city during down time,” said MHS senior Matthew Gabb.

Owen Talbert, MHS junior, added that the hotel was nice because “it was walking distance from the harbor.”

Each delegate participated in six committee sessions debating his or her country’s views on a variety of world issues.

MHS senior Shantrell Smith was a member of the Human Rights Council representing Belgium. Her committee’s focus was on “trying to pass resolutions pertaining to climate change and scientific advancements in genetics in the year 2030.”

In the Legal Committee, MHS junior Kendal Meese represented Nicaragua and discussed “criminal accountability of UN officials, and maritime piracy.” She also added that she “learned a lot about different countries positions on the two topics and learned about how Model UN works in general.”

Gabb, a delegate of the Economic and Social Council’s UN Development Program Committee represented Belgium.

“I learned so much. I learned not only about the issues we faced (poverty and gender equality), but about the views of so many different nations, and all the ways the international community can and should come together to solve these problems,” said Gabb.

Each night of the conference, students were provided with a social event they could attend; Thursday night was a Delegate Jeopardy Night, Friday night was JHUMUNC ReMIXed featuring three a capella groups from Johns Hopkins University and on Saturday night was the most anticipated event every year at JHUMUNC: the delegate dance.

Parker Damm, MHS junior, said his favorite event was the dance because he likes to “party and jump around.”

Gabb said, “The delegate dance was definitely a night to be remembered.”

During the trip the students played a prank on Helmold.

“We were supposed to check-in with Mr. Helmold, and he wasn’t there and since we had a couple minutes we decided to play a trick on him. Haley Faire did a fantastic job of putting make-up on Owen Talbert’s eye to make it look like he got punched. When Mr. Helmold came in we made sure Owen had ice on his eye and wove an elaborate but believable story that had Mr. Helmold freaking out. When he told us he was going to fill out an accident report that’s when we told him it was fake. The next morning we received a 6:30 wakeup call as pay back…I still think we won,” said MHS senior McKenzie Watson.

Helmold said, “I would recommend this trip very much for the future; however, I would not allow any student to bring any make-up that could be used to make another student look like they had a black eye.”

“This was the best field trip of my high school career by far; anyone who has this opportunity should definitely try to go,” said Smith.