Special to UM News

The UM Model United Nations Team celebrates its Best Small Delegation award at the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference.

CORAL GABLES, Fla., (February 18, 2016)—The University of Miami Model United Nations Team received the Best Small Delegation Award at the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference (HNMUN), held in Boston earlier this month.

Head delegates Perry Elbadrawi and Joshua Zuchniarz were excited to lead the team to victory and regain the title they won two years ago. The award highlights the team’s dedication to bringing awareness to international issues in an ever-changing world. The team took on the role of Cuban and Indonesian diplomats in seven committees, with topics ranging from water scarcity, to the future of the economic silk road in Eurasia, as well as two crisis committees.

HNMUN is considered the most competitive conference on the World Circuit for the whole year. Several UM students took home top honors in their respective committees, in addition to receiving the top overall award. Success at Harvard’s conference is not a new phenomenon for this team. This year marked the second time in three years the team takes home the Best Small Delegation award. The team’s success this year at Harvard comes after an amazing win at the University of Pennsylvania’s conference, where the team also took home the Best Small Delegation award at the fall semester’s most competitive conference.

The team members who received top awards in their respective committees are:

• Perry Elbadrawi: Outstanding Delegate, Futuristic Shanghai Cooperation Organization Committee
• Shane Kemeny: Outstanding Delegate, Futuristic Shanghai Cooperation Organization Committee
• Karthik Meiyappan: Outstanding Delegate, World Health Organization
• Alisha Kabir: Honorable Mention, Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
• Joshua Zuchniarz: Honorable Mention, Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
• Daniel Moubayed: Honorable Mention, Special Political and Decolonization Committee
• Andrea Wright: Honorable Mention, Special Political and Decolonization Committee
• Joseph Reda: Honorable Mention, World Conference on Women Committee

“Model UN seeks to empower students to learn about the world from different perspectives and work together to bring about innovative solutions to the most pressing issues facing the international community today,” Elbadrawi and Zuchniarz, the head delegates, said in a statement. “We seek to do this through our activities on campus, in addition to participating in conferences. We are incredibly proud to represent the University of Miami around the country and to be recognized on the International Model UN circuit as a strong team, particularly on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.”

The UM team previously received the Business School Organization of the Year award in 2012-2013, the Outstanding Small Delegation award at Yale University in Fall 2013, the Outstanding Small Delegation award at the University of Pennsylvania in Fall 2014, the Best Small Delegation award at the University of Pennsylvania in Fall 2015, and the Best Small Delegation award at the nation’s most prestigious conference hosted by Harvard University in Spring 2014.

The team will compete at the Virginia International Crisis Simulation hosted by the University of Virginia and ChoMUN hosted by the University of Chicago later this semester. The UMiami MUN team will also be hosting the fifth anniversary of their own conference, the Miami International Conference for the Simulation of the United Nations (MICSUN V), for more than 500 high school students from around the world, in April.

The staff advisor to the UM Model UN team is Devika Milner, director of UM Study Abroad. The Model UN team receives funding from SAFAC and from the Division of Undergraduate Education, headed by William S. Green, senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate education.