The Model UN team won a delegation award at the Southern Regional Model United Nations Conference in Charlotte on April 12 to 14. Justin Davidson, a junior at PC, was also honored by being selected as chair at the conference. He presided over sessions in the International Renewable Energy Agency.

“All students have performed admirably,” said Dr. David Liu, political science professor at PC. “Five students received high marks from the conference for their well-researched position papers.”

All in all, the PC Model UN team included 11 students at the conference. Representing Finland and Korea, they competed with approximately 500 students from more than 60 colleges and universities in the Southeastern region.

Students were assigned to different committees such as the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. They all had one goal in mind: To seek solutions to global issues.

“It has been really gratifying to see what I experienced as a pilot project a year ago grow into an established program and that we are really working as a team to represent the best of PC,” said Kailynn Turner, a sophomore at PC. “I am especially proud to see what the new delegates have been able to accomplish in their first conference.”

Turner served as the head delegate for the PC Model UN Team. She worked with every delegate to make sure that everyone was well-supported. Lance Harvey represented PC for the first time during a Model UN conference. He served as a judge and a defense advocate in the highly intensive International Criminal Court.

Liu prepares the students in his one-hour credit course on Model UN.

“Model UN is not only about content learning,” Liu said. “It’s also about cultivating a habit of the heart to try to work with people from different backgrounds and think about issues from different perspectives.

“The experiential learning through the Model UN echoes PC’s strategic plan, the Promise of PC, to build a more tolerant and diverse community that strives to serve the entire humanity. Education at the point goes beyond the acquisition of knowledge and becomes the training of a whole person that cares and can work with others to make our world a better place.”

This year’s conference is the third that the PC Model UN Team has attended. The team has grown each year. Four students competed in Charlotte in the pilot conference in the spring of 2017. Nine students competed in the Atlanta conference in the fall of 2017.

Richard Kauzlarich, a former US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Azerbaijan, served as the keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of this year’s conference.

“Diplomacy is an art,” Kauzlarich said during the keynote address. “It cannot be taught and it cannot be learned, it can only be practiced.”

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