51³Ô¹ÏÍø

The University of North Georgia's (51³Ô¹ÏÍø) Model United Nations (UN) team earned an Outstanding Position Paper award from the Southern Regional Model UN spring event. Set for Charlotte, North Carolina, the in-person event was canceled, but papers were still reviewed for awards.

Of 70 schools who submitted papers, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø was one of 15 to receive the honor. Six 51³Ô¹ÏÍø students, who were the club's top performers in the fall, teamed up on the papers representing the position of Sri Lanka.

Model UN gives students the chance to debate the international community's most pressing issues and to collaboratively develop concrete solutions.

Jenna Patterson, president of 51³Ô¹ÏÍø's Model UN, and Alex Joplin, vice president, are both in 51³Ô¹ÏÍø's Master of Arts in International Affairs program. Their other collaborators on the paper were Anna Caitlyn Anderson, Madeline Jarrell, Blake Oviedo and Michael Retzer.

"We go back to the drawing board so many times when we're writing these papers," Patterson said.

A curveball came when Sri Lanka changed its foreign relations policy a few days before the paper was due. Patterson and Joplin led the team's efforts to recalibrate their papers to reflect the current reality.

"It definitely speaks to the hard work of everyone involved this semester," Joplin said of the award. "It was really satisfying."

Dr. Jonathan Miner, professor of political science, and Dr. Bibek Chand, assistant professor of political science, serve as the faculty advisers for Model UN.