Courtesy of The Talisman
About 50 students expressed interest in joining the Model UN at Club Rush this year.In May, Model UN student leaders began the search for a new adviser to replace assistant principal Matthew Torrens, who struggled last year to balance time management for both Model UN and Mock Trial.
As it turned out, Torrens will hold the role again after an unsuccessful search for a new adviser.
“The main concern that every teacher that we asked expressed was that they were too busy and that they had a lot of things going on. I think it just added too much onto their plates, that’s why we struggled with finding an advisor,” said junior Aradhita Singh, who holds the role of director general in the club.
Model UN is a simulation of a United Nations conference. Participants, or delegates, must collaborate with one another to create solutions that resolve issues, such as humanitarian crises and territorial disputes. Conferences can involve dozens of students from different schools playing these roles.
For the SHS club, the biggest struggle in recent years has been maintaining participation. Singh noted that one of the major challenges the club faces is gaining visibility as a humanities club in a STEM-based school.
Singh hopes to increase participation in the club through expanding outreach efforts through social media reels.
The club also plans to connect with Redwood Middle School students in order to foster interest in incoming potential club members.
“We’re planning on visiting the middle school and maybe teaching them a little on how Model UN works and functions, possibly hosting a conference for the students,” Singh said. “We hope that efforts like this will help increase our participation.”
This school year, the club is in the stages of planning to host their own Model UN conference as a way to promote the club in the community of schools. The hope is to host this conference in the fall of 2026.
Said Singh: “We are planning on trying to hold a smaller-scale conference. We want to meet with a couple of schools who have held conferences this year, and we are hoping to establish our position in the world of Bay Area Model United Nations and have more outreach.”
Despite all these challenges, members continue to appreciate what the club offers. Members say they practice valuable skills including diplomacy and public speaking. For Singh, the club teaches lessons that extend beyond an academic activity.
“Our club represents so many of the ideals that America itself is based on: peace, unity, international neutrality, and negotiation and democracy,” she said. “Model UN covers a lot of different topics and important life skills, like public speaking, impromptu speech, friendly relations, there’s just so many different things you can learn from Model UN and a lot of new people you get to meet through conferences.”
The club plans on attending their first conference on Sept. 20, at Harker PanMUN. Other leaders for the group include senior Bill Huang and junior Evangelina Stepanchenko.
They are sending seven students, and hope to increase participation throughout the year at conferences such as University of California, Berkeley MUN and Santa Clara Valley MUN.
