Under the mentorship of Dr. Noha Shawki, and in collaboration with several high school teachers in Bloomington-Normal, four political science majors and members of the 2023 Model United Nations (Model U.N.) team helped coordinate and run two model U.N. simulations for students from several high schools in the Bloomington-Normal area in fall semester 2023. Damien Broadhead was the student leader for this project, and he worked with Jazmine Benson, Ash Ebikhumi, and Allison Henrichsmeyer to plan and host the two simulations and to prepare high school students who participated in these simulations.
To plan and prepare for this project, Shawki partnered with Hunter Watts, who teaches at Normal Community High School and coordinated with four other area high school teachers: John Bierbaum (Normal Community West High School), Sarah Lamkin (Normal Community High School), Patrick Rosengren (Bloomington High School), and Michael Shanley (University High School).
The Illinois State team started planning for the fall 2023 simulations by attending a model U.N. club meeting at Normal Community High School in April and observing a summit held at the school in May. Over the summer, the team met and worked to plan and prepare for fall activities, which included model U.N. club meetings and the two simulations. The club meetings were designed for the Illinois State team to prepare high school students for the simulations and mentor them as they worked to make the transition from high school-level to college-level model U.N. work. The first fall simulation, held at Normal Community in September, centered around hunger in Haiti and was chaired by Illinois State students. The second and much longer simulation, held on campus in October, was a simulation of two U.N. committees: one committee debated the illicit trade in small arms, while the other debated energy sustainability. Both committees were also chaired by Illinois State students.
