Englewood Model UN Team Wins Big at UConn Conference

The Englewood Model UN team, made up of students from the Academies@Englewood (A@E) and Dwight Morrow High School, took home three “Best Delegate” awards recently in its first major competition of the year.

A total of 27 Englewood delegates, representing all four high school grade levels and including eight freshmen, competed in the University of Connecticut’s 14th Annual Model UN conference, participating in debates and writing position papers on issues like child soldiers, genocide and nuclear war.

Senior Manuel Barrientos, a student in the Law and Public Safety Academy at A@E, won Best Delegate as a representative of the Palestinian Authority on the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (SPECPOL) at the competition.

Jacob Kholodenko, a sophomore in the Information Systems Academy at A@E, also took Best Delegate honors representing the U.S. on the United Nations Children’s Fund Committee (UNICEF).

Englewood’s third Best Delegate award went to junior Law and Public Safety Academy student Elizabeth Spenst for representing the U.S. in “Girl Up,” a new committee that aims to raise awareness of women facing sexism in their countries.

The UConn conference is just the beginning of what promises to be a good year for Englewood’s Model UN team—the three Best Delegate awards were the most by any team at the competition. 

Co-advisors Mindy Rochman and John Cirilli supervise the team, which has plans to attend Model UN conferences at Columbia University in January and the University of Massachusetts in March.