Model UN Earns Accolades

NJCU’s Model UN delegation won two awards at the Annual Conference of the National Model United Nations (NMUN) in New York City. Political Science major Steven Pollak beat out 190 competitors to earn the Outstanding Position Paper Award of the General Assembly Committee. The NJCU team was also named an Honorable Mention Delegation by the National Collegiate Conference Association. NJCU represented Cambodia at the April 2017 event. The students taking part in the NMUN event were Cely Cotto, General Assembly First Committee; Pollak, General Assembly Second Committee; Harold Daniels, General Assembly Third Committee; Monir Khilla and Jeniya Turner, High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) Committee; Vakhtang Kizirya and Alejandra Mexia, United Nations Environment Assembly Committee; and Philip Cranwell and Joseph Hurley, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Committee. Dr. Ning Liao, Assistant Professor of Political Science, served as faculty advisor. Liao joined the NJCU faculty in 2014 following the completion of his Ph.D. in international studies at Old Dominion University. His scholarship largely falls in to the thematic fields of the international relations of East Asia, including Chinese foreign relations and U.S./China relations. His research has appeared in refereed journals such as Asian Politics & Policy, East Asia: An International Quarterly, and Asian Profile, as well as an edited volume published by the University of Michigan Press. This is not the first year NJCU was recognized at the National Model UN. In spring 2015, the NJCU delegation, representing Central African Republic, earned the Outstanding Position Paper Award of the UN Environment Program Committee, the Best Delegates of the Economic Commission for Africa, and an Honor Delegation Award.