KSU’s Model NATO team won six awards at the 2017 International Model NATO Conference, held in Washington D.C. from Feb. 14-19.
Of the six awards brought home by KSU, five were committee awards. The other was the Overall Outstanding Delegation Award, which was won by only four teams at the conference.
Twenty colleges and universities competed from across the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Canada. Although some schools attended with more than one team, each team represented a different member nation of NATO. Students acted as delegates, defending their nation’s policies.
“The Model NATO conference simulates a real meeting of NATO officials,” said Brook Doss, a senior journalism major and the team leader for KSU. “It focuses on diplomacy and small group negotiation to solve real world problems, as well as a ‘crisis’ simulation that is built by the faculty.”
Doss explained that, this year, the topic forced students to focus on counter-terrorism and cyber security.
“[The teams] draft language that eventually becomes a resolution and goes into a final communique that is sent to the real NATO in Brussels,” Doss explained.
KSU’s nine-student team represented the Czech Republic, and faculty adviser and professor Stephen McKelvey was proud of the team’s performance.
“This was the best team we have had in decades,” McKelvey said. “I could not have asked for a better team.”
As a part of the conference, the students went to the Embassy of the Czech Republic. The team was briefed by the First Secretary of the Embassy and the Minister-Counselor of the Embassy about Czech policy within NATO. This allowed the students to further solidify their stance in regards to the Czech Republic’s positions.
