Reported by Cassie Tammy Wang
Model United Nations clubs are common in the high school system of GPA area, but rare in the middle school system. Greater Princeton AYLUS (GPA) Team Leader Angelina Yingying Liu, together with her three classmates, recently founded the first Model UN club in their middle school to start serving the Princeton Day School community since November 30th, 2018.
Information Provided by Angelina Ying Liu:
In November 2018, GPA Team Leader Angelina Yingying Liu and three classmates decided to start a new club in the Princeton Day School (PDS) Middle School. Because of their fondness for both debating and Model United Nations (Model UN), they agreed that initiating a club dedicated to the Model UN would be a great opportunity for others to try something new and for the founders to learn even more about it. In addition, it would also provide many volunteer opportunities for Angelina and others to serve the PDS community.
Angelina et al. began to plan out and think of some possibilities. After getting their proposal approved by the 7th Grade Dean and the Head of Middle School, the four students and their new teacher supervisor began to go through a planning process. They arranged a meeting place and dates, an interest meeting to introduce any interested students to Model UN, and started to publicize their club on their school’s app Schoology. They spent hours researching websites and resources to use in their club curriculum in their free time, and met with numerous faculty members during their free periods at school to plan the club.
Finally, on December 6th, as one of the four founders of Model UN club, Angelina and her co-founders took to the stage in one of the middle school assemblies. They proudly announced the news of the Model UN club to the middle school students. Angelina et al. were ecstatic to find themselves overwhelmed with signups and were overjoyed to see that so many people were interested in the newly founded club.
Currently meetings are being held every two weeks in the PDS middle school amphitheater, lasting for 40 min from 12:40 pm to 1:20 pm. So far, her Model UN club volunteer service (4.75 hours in total) dates and time are: Friday 11/30 (10 min announcement, 40 min writing and posting information on schoology app); Monday 12/3 (40 min setting up interest survey); Tuesday 12/4 (40 min working on interest meeting slideshow); Thursday 12/6 (25 min interest meeting, 40 min first official meeting); Friday 12/7 (40 min making and setting up official sign up sheet); Tuesday 12/11 (40 min counting and officiating members, making Schoology group with teacher advisor); Wednesday 12/12 (10 min contacting high school Model UN leaders).
Starting their own Model UN club really helped Angelina et al. learn about planning and allowed them to dive behind the scenes of building a club up from scratch. As one of the club leaders, she’s glad to have the chance to initiate such a good volunteer experience.
Way to go, GPA Team Leader Angelina Yingying Liu!
