A-SMYLE Student Takes Top Prize

On October 11, 2008, Nikola Vitas walked into Regis Jesuit High School in Denver, Colorado—along with over fifty of his classmates from Boulder High School—to attend the state’s first Model United Nations Conference of the new school year. Later that day, he walked out with a first-place award.

Nikola and his teammate, James, won best delegation for their efforts in representing Russia at the conference.

Model United Nations (Model UN for short) is a simulation of the real United Nations, and it is organized by The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA), a non-profit organization, at both the high school and college level. Various Model UN conferences are held throughout the year, each with a different theme on which participants debate. The themes of this conference were illicit arms trafficking and maritime security.

Said Nikola about his experience thus far with Model UN, “I feel that [Model UN] is improving my skills as a public speaker and my debating skills as well as expanding my vocabulary immensely. For each MUN conference, students are supposed to conduct individual research in order to successfully present the views of their selected countries. Although one might not always agree with the views of the selected country, that only helps students adjust to compromises and critical thinking.”

Serious debate was not all Nikola took from his time in Denver, however. “I got to meet a lot of people, and that is the best thing [about] conferences and one of the main points: bringing people together,” he said about his experience.

Fresh off his win, Nikola is preparing for the next conference, on November 8th, where he and his MUN partner James will represent the country of Libya. He is undeterred, however, by the prospect of playing the part of a country that has had its own real-life confrontations with the United Nations in the early 1990s over the country’s part in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing: “That is another great thing: people get to represent various countries’ opinions regardless of what their opinions are. It is great role playing and really improves one’s debating capabilities. I only hope that I will get to represent Serbia in one of these conferences.”

For more information on UNA-USA, visit: this website.

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