Clark Model U.N. team excels at Harvard conference

Senior Anna Moran won the Best Delegate Award (top honors in her committee) in the Asian Regional Forum, representing Indonesia. Sarah Richard and Abir Joshi, both juniors, won the Honorable Mention Award in the Legal Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, also representing Indonesia. Senior Katerina Antoniou won the Honorable Mention Award in the G-20 Summit for Energy Infrastructure Reform, representing Indonesia, and junior Fei Lu won the Honorable Mention Award in the World Bank Committee, representing Kuwait. Harvard National Model U.N. is the largest, oldest and most prestigious conference in the United States, and this year there were over 3,000 students in attendance, from over 200 colleges and universities from 35 different countries. The conference, containing more than 26 unique committees, was run by a team of 180 Harvard undergraduates. The all-encompassing General Assembly features both traditional main committees of the U.N. General Assembly and innovative committees, such as the first-ever U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development. The interconnected branches of the Economic and Social Council tackled a wide range of societal and developmental challenges, while the Regional Bodies such as ASEAN and the European Union covered issues that required intimate knowledge and understanding of each region. Specialized Committees, such as the Historical Security Council and the Joint Cabinet Crisis (JCC), dealt with major international issues of the day, such as nuclear disarmament and Israeli-Palestinian Crisis. The Clark Model U.N. team will participate in the Five Colleges Model U.N. Conference on the campus of Mount Holyoke College in late April and, for the first time, Clark will host a one-day Middle School conference on March 27. Plans are also afoot to host a High School Model U.N. conference in the fall. The Clark University Model U.N. team’s participation in the Harvard Conference was made possible through the financial support of the Department of Government and International Relations, at Clark. Clark Professor Srinivasan Sitaraman is the team’s faculty adviser. Participants included Katerina Antoniou ’10, Melissa Au ’12, Casey Billings ’12, Thomas Brescia ’11, David Dissanayake ’10, Tanya D’lima ’11, Ryan Forman B.A. ’09/M.A. ’10, Ben Greenslade ’13, Tamar Gzirishvili ’12, Reza Hassan ’10, Himal Jayasekara ’11, Irta John ’12, Abir Joshi ’11, Da Eun Lee ’12, Fei Lu ’11, Jun Ha Lyu ’13, Anna Moran ’10, Katerine Ramirez ’10, Sarah Richard ’11, Samer Said ’13, Allen Salerno ’12, Adam Shulman ’11, Angelica Surra ’12, and Givi Zedelashvili ’12.