The next great meeting of political minds won’t be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
On April 15, Merrimack College’s Model UN Public Policy Club will host its first-ever invitational conference for early college and undergraduate students.
“We currently have more than 25 students signed up and expect to get more,” said Matthew Cohen, associate professor of practice and faculty advisor of the Model UN Public Policy Club. “One of our primary goals is to help show early college students some of the great things they can do here at Merrimack.”
Participants will represent countries in groups of two and will work together to draft and vote on resolutions. Debates and caucuses will be based on each country’s real-world political positions.
“We have gone to other schools for similar events in the past and I thought it would be a great opportunity to grow our club, engage with the early college students and have fun doing one more Model UN conference before I graduate,” said Model UN Co-President Cameron James ’22, a graduate student expected to receive a master’s in public affairs at the end of this school year. “Model UN events have always been a fun way to practice debating, writing in a formal legal style and networking.”
Yami Villaronga ’26, the club’s treasurer and political science major, planned the conference. Like some of the conference’s participants, she was an early college student at Merrimack College before fully enrolling this past fall.
“For this event, I worked with the early college team here and with the connecting high schools to see if we could give early college students the opportunity to join the Model UN club and get a first-hand experience of what Model UN is,” Villaronga explained. “We want to strengthen our connection with the schools that attend other Model UN conferences so that Merrimack College can grow to be a well-known Model UN school.”
