Jodi Marcus

Staff Writer

Despite the loss of last year’s strongest members, the Milken Model United Nations team has high expectations for its four competitions this year. The team will attend conferences at University of California Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, University of California Santa Barbara, and Stanford.

“Every year we have gone to Berkeley in March and have done really well there. It is like the Super Bowl of Model UN. Only our strongest delegates are taken to Penn, the Ivy League conference for the best of the best,” the instructor of the class, Mr. Beau Lindsay, shared.

This year’s team is made up of 27 students in the class and an additional 64 students in the club.

“In the past we had a couple of extremely strong students who really were leaders. This year is very different because we have a larger amount of kids who are all very passionate. I see this team as more democratic with more student participation,” Lindsay noted.

Lindsay is expecting the members of team’s lead council to emulate the strength and leadership of last year’s seniors.

“We won’t suffer too much of a dip from last year. Adding on an additional conference this year will help with gaining experience too,” Lindsay said.

In addition to a class full of passionate students, this year the team features Israel exchange student Daniel Farge who will bring an international perspective to the program. He brought his experiences as an Israeli to the class during a simulation about asylum seekers and refugees.

Lindsay sees this new connection to Farge as a way to develop a program that would allow Tiferet students to take part in the Tel Aviv conference. He also aspires to take the students to New York, where the real United Nations gathers.

Although Lindsay has many exciting plans for the future of the class, he also expects a strong delegation and a continuation of past successes.

“The students this year have so much enthusiasm,” he said. “I am looking forward to exploring new conferences with them this year.”