Tustin High School Model United Nations (THSMUN) celebrated its 20th anniversary
Tustin High School Model United Nations celebrated its 20th anniversary this past weekend. Tustin’s Model UN program started in 1991 and its conference has grown to become the largest high school-level conference in the world hosted by a single high school at 1,400 delegates this year. Tustin is a public school that travels abroad multiple times every year (they’re going to the Czech Republic and Russia this year), and their conference welcomed a school from the Czech Republic as part of a MUN exchange program.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, honorary Secretary-General Mrs. Linda Levine shared stories about all the amazing things Tustin alumni are doing today in the field of international relations. Here are just a few samples of Tustin alumni that we’ve picked out since they did MUN in college: Vicki Esquivel who went to Harvard and is now working for an NGO in Uganda; Monisha Ashok who went to Berkeley (served as UCBMUN Secretary-General) and after a stint at the World Bank is now at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; and Swetha Totapally who went to Yale and now works at a development consulting firm in India. Since we’re talking about alumni, Tustin even had its first-ever Secretary-General from 20 years ago show up to visit the conference!
Ryan and I actually met at Tustin during their 2003 conference, so this conference is part of Best Delegate lore. This is the Best Delegate team’s first time blogging about the conference, and we wanted to make sure we captured all the diplomacy in action.
Here are photos of delegates and staff in action; we made sure to visit both the novice and advanced committees. I’ve just selected a few below — see a much larger album on Facebook!
Trabuco Hills High School is ready for THSMUN! Also, look at that Best Delegate Academy binder!
MUN is FUN!
Delegates in CSW are enjoying the conference
Advanced ESCAP chairs are big fans of Best Delegate!
Mission Viejo students smile for the camera!
Santa Margarita celebrates one of its two best class delegation awards
Santa Margarita with its other best class delegation award
University High School won a best club delegation award
Palos Verdes Peninsula High School won a club delegation award
Tustin’s conference emphasizes diplomacy first. Delegation awards were given by country to one class program and one club program for GA committees and for ECOSOC/Specialized committees. Santa Margarita Catholic High School won both the class delegation awards, and Palos Verdes Peninsula High School and University High School (Irvine) won the club delegation awards.
Congratulations to all the delegates and staff on a successful conference!
Don’t forget to check out more photos on the Facebook page!
