In December 2018, two Grandview Heights High School freshmen – Tyler Schmied and Harvey Pierce – came to science teacher Caleb Evans to ask if he would be the adviser for their new Model United Nations Club.
“I had just seen representations of it in, you know, common media,” says Schmied, who served as secretary-general of the club in his senior year. “We thought that sounded really fun but also something that, like, we could take a little bit more seriously.”
Evans agreed and two months later, the team was off to its first competition at the Ohio State University Model United Nations – hosted by The Ohio State University’s Model UN group, Collegiate Council on World Affairs.
In hindsight, Evans says, the competition may have been premature for the young team, but the group has come a long way since then. This year, competing at the National High School Model United Nations Conference (NHSMUN) in New York City for the first time, the team earned first and third place in the conference’s two team award categories.
“My main thing from day one has been I want this to be student-ran,” Evans says. “They’ve done such a phenomenal job of taking this over, particularly in the last year.”
Cody Allen, an incoming senior at GHHS and the under secretary general of Delegate Affairs and Crisis Team leader, says he first heard about the club as an eighth-grader when the club was in its first year.
“I’ve always been interested in politics and government when I was young,” he says. “I thought
it’d be a great opportunity to sort of express myself that way, and when I joined the club, I was able to get that fulfillment.”
For the trip to NHSMUN in New York City, which was supported by a grant from the Grandview Heights Marble Cliff Education Foundation, students began preparing for their assignments months in advance.
“It was honestly a lot of fun,” says club member Sabrina Li, an incoming junior. “I really got to make a lot of new friends and we all are such great debaters.”
Allen was part of the Food and Agricultural Organization and represented Uganda alongside Carter Black, chief of staff for the club.
Schmied, who represented the director of the policia nacional in Columbia during the conference, says participating in the event felt like an affirmation of all the hard work club members had put into the group over the last few years.
“It was really super satisfying, I guess, just to know that we got a team to nationals,” he says. “It felt like a culmination of everything we had started four years ago.”
NHSMUN presents two awards to high school students: the Award of Distinction for research and preparation and the Award of Merit for committee performance. Grandview Heights’ team took home first and third place honors, respectively, Evans says.
“I knew they were phenomenal; I told them they were phenomenal,” he says. “For them to be recognized on the world stage and get to hear that from somebody else, I think that was really important and really valuable.”
Individual Honors
Individually, each of the students participate in a variety of different committees or crisis teams. GHHS students spread across six committees.
Two pairs of GHHS students – Allen and Black, and Maria Ionno and Vivian Chute – were also recognized, among 30 total individuals or pairs of students. All four of those students spoke at the conference’s closing ceremony.
“I was really nervous but me and Carter were able to get the speech done,” Allen says. “Words can’t describe how amazing it was going up there and speaking in front of people.”
Allen and Black also received Top Delegate awards, Evans says.
Though the team consists of only nine members, Li says having a small team makes for a more close-knit experience. The returning members are excitedly preparing for their next season.
The team is already beginning fundraising opportunities and planning the itinerary for next year’s New York conference. Li says they also hope to attend Model UN conferences in Chicago and at Harvard University next school year.
Chloe McGowan is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
