Campus & Community

For the second straight year, Palm Beach State College’s team of students was recognized as a top performer at the National Model United Nations Conference in New York.

The eight-member PBSC Model United Nations team, which represented the country of Bahrain in the Middle East, received Honorable Mention Delegation, one of three tiers of awards. The other tiers are Distinguished Delegation and Outstanding Delegation.

“Only about 20 percent of the participating teams earn recognition, so we are very proud of our accomplishment,” said Professor Terry Randolph, department chair for political science, history and geography at the Boca Raton campus and the team’s faculty advisor.

The NMUN Conference, sponsored by the nonprofit National Collegiate Conference Association, is the largest of its kind in the world. Over 5,000 college and university students go to New York each spring for one of two similar conferences to discuss current global issues, representing the 193 countries that are member states of the United Nations. PBSC’s team attended Conference B held April 9-13. There were 160 to 170 teams and nearly 3,000 students from Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America and Africa, Randolph said.

Randolph said many of the colleges and universities send large delegations of 15-30 or more students and have dedicated courses their students enroll in to prepare for the conference.

“Our students must do all of their training and intense conference preparation as an extracurricular activity, so I am extremely proud of their accomplishment and recognition in competition with many of the best colleges and universities from around the world. They are an amazingly talented group of students,’’ he said.

PBSC Model UN team members said they appreciate the opportunity to travel to the conference for the experience. “This trip has changed my perspective on many things and has also given me the opportunity to do things I never would have had the chance to do,’’ said Nicolas Buompadre.

“The biggest impact I have taken from the NMUN is the fact the there is a cohesion between nations that can be recognized through diplomacy,’’ Joseph Morel said. “We all may have different ideas or differences in the way things should be done, but the fact that you can work though these differences through diplomacy is something I feel a lot of college students never get the chance to experience. Diplomacy may be a simple word that not a lot of college students understand, or know how to effectively engage in and be successful at; however, the NMUN provides a platform for you to be able to learn and grow in, developing research skills, public speaking, problem solving, communication skills, and so much more.”

Amy Abuqawod said she met lifelong friends. “Model UN really helped me develop skills of diplomacy, teamwork, compromise, and leadership,’’ she said. “I’m glad to say by the end of the conference the group that I worked with ended up all exchanging contact information and agreed to all stay in touch. These people I will never forget and this experience will never leave me.”