Baylor Model UN Students Recognized at Texas Model United Nations Conference

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WACO, Texas (Jan. 27, 2016) – Baylor University’s Model UN Team received two team awards and three individual awards in the second annual Texas Model United National Conference, which included participants from universities in Texas, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and Turkey.
Participants simulated four committees: General Assembly First Committee (security and disarmament), the World Health Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Security Council. The event took place Jan. 15-17 at the Center for International Business Education at the University of Texas, Austin.
Baylor’s Model UN delegates represented China, Germany, Slovakia, Spain and Vietnam at the conference. Topics researched and discussed at the conference included increasing access to medical care in developing countries, the role of the media in international security, advancing women’s participation in mediation and peace processes, and providing basic and primary health care services after natural disasters.
“Our students performed admirably at the conference, learning both about the United Nations and how to be an effective diplomat,” said Rebecca Flavin, Ph.D., Baylor Model UN faculty advisor and lecturer in political science. “While I wish to emphasize that awards are not the point of these invaluable educational experiences and should never be the metric by which we judge how much our students are learning, when our students are recognized for their participation, we should be doubly proud of their efforts.”
Baylor received the following awards:
Team Award for Outstanding Delegation, China – Conor Burns, senior political science and philosophy major, Kim Andrade, sophomore political science major, Luis Andres Torres, freshman pre-neuroscience major, and Kate Farley, junior University Scholar
Team Award for Honorable Mention Delegation, Vietnam – Renie Saenz, senior history major, and Rebecca Easley, senior history major
Individual Award for Outstanding Position Paper, Spain, World Health Organization – Carolina Gutierrez, sophomore pre-neuroscience major
Individual Award for Outstanding Position Paper, Germany, World Health Organization – Maria Astudillo, sophomore pre-neuroscience major
Individual Award for Outstanding Delegate in Committee, General Assembly First Committee – Kate Farley
Conor Burns of Fort Polk, Louisiana, has been a member of the Baylor Model UN team for two years. At the conference, he represented China on the Security Council.
“It is often generalized that young people don’t care about international issues, but my participation in Model UN has caused me to think otherwise,” Burns said. “All of the delegates at the conference were well prepared and offered great ideas that fueled our discourse throughout the conference.”
Participating universities included TCU, Texas A&M, Lamar University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Texas at Austin, Odessa College, the University of Texas Permian-Basin, the Osgood Center (Washington, D.C.), Sacred Heart (Puerto Rico) and Bahçe'?ehir University (Turkey).
For more information, contact Rebecca Flavin.
by Bethany Harper, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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