After a successful conference at Macalester college this Fall, the Edina Model UN team has been in full swing preparing for their two upcoming national conferences, one in Chicago and another in Philadelphia. These conferences are open to juniors and seniors, and have a competitive application process required to attend. The Philadelphia conference was a huge success for the Edina traveling MUN team, with multiple delegates bringing home awards.

• Mia Scalia: Best Delegate
• Sadie Uri and Myra Mohammed: Honorable Mention
• Anjali Aralikar: Verbal Commendation

This was senior Myra Mohammed’s third year on the MUN team. “We got to know people from all over the world and made a lot of new friends. It was also really fun to bond with the EHS MUNers. It was one of the best experiences of my high school career!” Mohammed said.

However, bringing home an award is not an easy feat either. The Philadelphia MUN conference (Called the Ivy League Model UN Conference) is a national conference, and lots of time, hard work and persistence were put in. Mohammed said she and her partner were surprised by their award. “Sadie and I never saw it coming! We spent a lot of time perfecting our position papers and obsessed over the person we would be representing, but in the end, our hard work paid off.”

This conference wraps up Mohammed’s three years of MUN, and she says the most valuable lesson she has gained is “to be patient and listen to others! Perspective on problems in the world is another thing I’ve gained… it’s still incredible to me that through diplomacy, communication, and thoughtfulness, a single individual is capable of fostering change on such an enormous scale.”

The following week another group of Edina delegates went to the conference in Chicago, (Model UN Conference of the University of Chicago). For many sophomores, this was their first out-of-state conference. Weekly practices are filled with loads of research and writing, however, the prospect of attending is exciting. Ahead of the trip, sophomore Rhea Hammond, who is attending the conference in Chicago, said, “It’s very exciting! There is a lot of research and preparation going into it, but already I can tell it will be worth it.”

Award winners at the Chicago conference were

• Peter Stidman
• Addison Kirscht
• Tommy Hardie & Lindsey McKhann
• Phoebe Taiwo
• Matthew Ruppert & Lizzie Kelley
• Lucas Flemming & Owen Brown
• Stella Olken-Hunt
• Arjun Maheshwari & Ellen Mi
• Aditya Rewalliwar & Nick Fu

“Best conference I have been to! The days looked long but everyone was really engaged and dedicated, food was wonderful, the people were even better than the food, and I had so much fun,” said Rhea Hammond.