Harrison Miller ’28
Jack Janczyk ’28
Episcopal was one of hundreds of schools that attended the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference, also known as ILMUNC, in Philadelphia from January 24-26. 74 students from EA, along with over 2,000 others from across the U.S. and the world, participated in the conference at the Marriott Philadelphia Downtown Hotel. Although there were problems with the winter weather that forced EA to cut Sunday out of the trip, they did not let the snow deter them from having a successful conference.
Model UN serves as an educational but entertaining way to involve students in international events, affairs, and decision-making. David Mercante, Upper School history teacher and faculty advisor for Model UN, describes the purpose of the club, stating, “Model UN is a simulation where students get assigned a country and a current event topic to research, and then they find out their country’s position on that issue. Then they go to a conference where there are other students from other schools that have been assigned to different countries, and then they sort of simulate what it would be like being in the United Nations.”
EA students performed well this year, and one delegation—Karen Shi ’27 and Natalie Jiang ’27— even received recognition for their achievements in their Organization of American States Committee with an honorable mention award.
It isn’t common for Episcopal students to receive awards at ILMUNC, Upper School English teacher Anne Barr explains, because most of the schools attending treat Model U.N. as a class or sport, giving them much more time to focus on their work. “Those students really have more time to devote to Model UN,” says Barr. “We’re not that kind of club.”
Jiang elaborates on her achievement, sharing, “I think going to the ILMUNC conference in the past has definitely helped me gain experience and confidence with speaking during sessions.”
EA began attending ILMUNC more than a decade ago, and the trip has quickly grown in popularity since then. Nowadays, with over 70 students attending a year, EA has even become the biggest delegation in the conference. This surging popularity has been largely driven by the rave reviews students give about the conference. Logan Bradica ‘28 highlights this notion, saying, “It’s fun to debate, even if you may not necessarily agree with your country, but if you do, it’s even more fun.”
Beyond the conference itself, many students enjoyed meeting new people and traveling into Philadelphia during their free time. Gabby Chirinos ’28 emphasizes what she enjoyed about her free time, noting, “Getting to know people and making a lot of new friends was awesome, and we met a lot of people who go to schools around us in the Inter-Ac.” She further elaborated on her recreational experience, stating, “In our free time we hung out with people we just met, and there were a lot of restaurants in our area we went to. We went to a Trader Joe’s a lot, which was really nice and convenient.”
At ILMUNC, students alternate between committee work, in which they engage in Model U.N. debate, and free time, during which most students explore Philadelphia. Reading Terminal Market, located less than a 1 minute walk from the hotel, is a particularly popular destination, but students also go out to other places like City Hall or the bowling alley inside of the hotel.
In recent years, EA’s attendance at ILMUNC has been disturbed by incidents of security failures in the middle of the night, false fire alarms at 3 am, and a threatening note which caused the much-anticipated Delegate Dance to be cancelled last year. These repeated occurrences even raised the possibility of EA forgoing the conference in the future if the problems persisted. Fortunately, the only problem this year—a snow storm—caused minimal chaos, as EA and many other schools quickly pivoted to an earlier departure time. The conference then adapted the schedule to ensure that all critical business would be completed before most schools started to leave.
Overall, EA had a productive and enjoyable Model UN experience this year, proof-positive of the club’s achievement on and off campus.
