By Ashley Cohen
Staff Writer
Advanced delegates of the Mira Costa Model United Nations program had recent success at the Advanced Berkeley Model United Nations conference at the University of California at Berkeley on Feb. 27 to Mar. 1 and the National High School Model United Nations conference in New York on Mar. 4-7.
Advisors Robert Timberlake and Wayne Knutson took 45 sophomore, junior, and senior advanced students to a MUN conference at Berkeley. At this conference, Costa MUN received the award for best overall school and six individual delegates received the best delegate award in their committees.
“This conference has always been a good indicator of how our program is doing as a whole,” senior Kaleo Kinimaka-Akhoi said. “It’s known for being competitive, fast-paced, and all around challenged so it was great that we managed to come out on top again like we usually do.”
Forty sophomore, junior and senior advanced MUN students debated at the MUN Nationals in the United Nations building in New York City. Costa was also awarded for being the best overall school at this debate.
“We did very well at this debate and every single delegate dominated in their committee,” senior Nicki Durazo said. “We went up against a lot of our national rivals and it was great ending the year on such a good note.”
About ten delegates from Costa had the opportunity to speak at the closing ceremony of this conference in the General Assembly hall of the United Nations building. The committee chairs chose one country to speak during the closing ceremonies about everything that happened during the individual debates in their committee.
“My partner and I were really excited to be chosen,” senior Monique Bolsajian said. “It was my last MUN conference ever, so ending it with a speech in the UN was an incredible experience.”
The last conference that Costa will be attending is the 13th annual Davis Model United Nations Conference on May 16-17 at the University of California at Davis campus. According to Timberlake, only freshman, sophomore, and some junior delegates will be attending this conference. Invites for this conference have not been released yet.
“Davis acts as a learning conference for a lot of our underclassmen,” Timberlake said. “We invite a few freshmen from the intro class who show a lot of potential so that they have an opportunity to experience an advanced debate before the next year starts.”
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