Published in

May 12, 2021

Oak Hill Delegates Display Everyday Justice, Wisdom, and Courage at Model UN 

Model United Nations (Model UN) is a worldwide organization that gives students in middle school, high school, and college the opportunity to simulate the research, debate, and problem-solving of the real UN.

NJ Private School Model UN 2021

This year, Oak Hill Academy was excited to participate in Christian Brothers Academy’s 8th Annual Middle School Model UN. The event took place on Friday, 16 April, 2021. Although CBA has held all previous events on their own campus, this year they hosted the event virtually due to on-going measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Most of Oak Hill’s students were together on Oak Hill’s campus, gathered in one of five rooms by topic (see below), socially distanced and wearing masks.

Spoiler alert: Oak Hill performed extremely well, earning numerous individual awards and the coveted Best Large Delegation Award for our entire school!

In Model UN parlance, each school sends a “delegation” to the event, and every student adopts the role of a “delegate” to the “committee” for their topic. At this year’s event, students from eight schools attempted to pass resolutions on five topics:

  1. the Berlin Wall in 1986
  2. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): North Korea
  3. UN Women: equality in the Middle East
  4. NCAA 2020: COVID-19 and athletics, and right of publicity for student athletes
  5. United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA): colonization of Mars

The following Oak Hill students accepted the challenge of this year’s event: 

  • 6th grade: Dimitrios Giannakopoulos, Henry Griffith, Emory Herbruck, Buddy Levy, Ariana Li, Luli Mitchell, Aanya Patel, Hannah Pollak, Ethan Shargorodsky, Isabella Walsh, Audrey Wei, Julien Wong
  • 7th grade: Georgia Attardi, Guru Dhananjay Chauhan, Felix Chiu, Hope D’Orsi, Sophia Hare, Daniel Josovitz, Vincent Li, Katherine Mirne, William Plank, Kate Schweikert, Annabel Sparano, Luca Tarantini, Miranda Ziemba
  • 8th grade: Nick Giannatasio, Andrew Lin, Leena Mirchandani

 For each of the five committees, CBA offers five individual awards:

  • Best Delegate
  • Outstanding Delegate
  • Honorable Mention
  • Best Position Papers (two)

Out of 25 possible individual awards, we won nine. And in the NCAA committee, we won four of the five. Here are the awards that Oak Hill delegates earned by committee:

  • Berlin Wall
    • Katherine Mirne: Best Position Paper
  • IAEA: North Korea
    • Annabel Sparano: Best Delegate
  • UN Women
    • Audrey Wei: Best Position Paper
  • NCAA
    • Leena Mirchandani: Outstanding Delegate
    • Dimitrios Giannakopoulos: Honorable Mention
    • Leena Mirchandani: Best Position Paper
    • Hope D’Orsi: Best Position Paper
  • UNOOSA: Mars
    • Julien Wong: Outstanding Delegate
    • Guru Dhananjay Chauhan: Honorable Mention

Our students’ passion, hard work, and beautiful performance earned Oak Hill the school-wide award of Best Large Delegation for the fourth year in a row. But the awards are mere signs of success, incidental to the true prizes: intellectual growth and personal excellence.

Model UN asks a lot of its middle school participants: in-depth historical research, clear writing, persuasive speaking, resilience, authentic listening, empathy, creativity, and imagination. Students are forced to think on their feet, answer questions on the fly, and compose complex arguments in cooperation with complete strangers in the span of mere minutes. Oak Hill students, under the close guidance of their faculty mentors, Dr. Joseph Lipp and Mrs. Linda Vacca, displayed outstanding justice, wisdom, and courage at this year’s event.

In some ways, Oak Hill’s Model UN performance was outstanding — since it stood out from the rest in obvious ways (e.g., winning 36% of individual awards). In other ways, however, Oak Hill’s performance was normal — since such personal and collective displays of justice, wisdom, and courage happen here everyday.

Oak Hill Academy is a NJ private school that is co-educational, independent, nonsectarian, and nonprofit for grades pre-kindergarten through eight. Oak Hill Academy is dedicated to a traditional, challenging, and caring learning environment that encourages comprehensive thought processes and deep understandings; thus promoting the wholesome intellectual, emotional, moral, and physical lifetime growth of our students. To learn more about how we are the best Private School in New Jersey, visit us online at www.oakhillacademy.com , or subscribe to our mailing list to be notified when we post more topics.

Newsletter

Share
Article By Oak Hill Academy
Oak Hill Academy is a Monmouth County NJ private school that is co-educational, independent, nonsectarian, and nonprofit for grades per-kindergarten through eight.

Our Latest News

Navigating Life: The Core of Personal Wisdom

Navigating Life: The Core of Personal Wisdom We at Oak Hill Academy believe that in the journey of life, personal wisdom serves as the compass, shaping one’s character and influencing one’s path.  It’s a practical trait – guiding decisions, defining purpose, and fostering positive connections, and it’s important that children are exposed to this concept […]

Read More
Oak Hill Faculty continue quest for growth

Oak Hill Faculty continue quest for growth Part of our school philosophy has always included the concept of constant improvement. We, as a world and in particular as a school, find ourselves in a new state of development and innovation.  To meet these demands and to prepare our students for the future, we must continually […]

Read More
Education on the Horizon

Education on the Horizon The education of our students is quickly evolving with the advent of the latest AI tools.  So, what may be the essence of education for our future?  Since the progress and well-being of our world depends so heavily on the education of our children, it is imperative that we take a […]

Read More
“Why?” Is the Question

“Why?” Is the Question Young children are consistently asking “why?”  They have an instinctive need to know about everything that enters their worlds.  Their senses are hard wired to be on the alert for stimuli which captures their interest.  As we grow older, we continue to be curious about our environment, however, we may not […]

Read More
Get The Latest News From Oak Hill! Join our newsletter now
News & Events

News & Events

Featured News

More News

Students meet author, Kate Moore Read More
Oak Hill Math Team Places Second at CBA Brother Christian Jones Middle School Math Tournament Contest Read More
Swim Team makes a Splash this Winter Read More
Oak Hill receives Four Awards from the American Scholastic Press Read More
View More

Upcoming Events

Friday, March 29
  • Spring Break - No School

    Saturday, March 23 - Sunday, April 7  

    See more details

Saturday, March 30
  • Spring Break - No School

    Saturday, March 23 - Sunday, April 7  

    See more details

Sunday, March 31
Monday, April 1
  • Spring Break - No School

    Saturday, March 23 - Sunday, April 7  

    See more details

View All Events