After a months-long wait for an election to begin, Model United Nations team seniors Maggie Yagan and Daniel Chang were appointed as secretaries-general on Oct. 14, and the team is already having success in competition. 

This year, the executive board and the advisory board have been combined to form an 11-person executive board, the biggest board in the club’s history. 

Model UN adviser Heavenly Hicks feels the larger executive board was necessary based on feedback the advisers received from the team last year.

“We really took the feedback we received from the team in the spring in terms of their needs and desires, one of which was transparency and a broader distribution of leadership,” Ms. Hicks said. “This makes more team members feel like they have a stake in what is happening to the course of the team itself.”

Maggie and Daniel want to have more transparency with members of Model UN and to make it a more inclusive environment.

“We want to calm things down, make the leadership structure have a little more transparency and accountability,” Maggie said. 

Gabi Novak, a junior, was elected as one of the undersecretaries-general of the general assembly — a position that helps prepare the part of the team that competes in the general assembly. Gabi has seen promise in the idea of a larger executive board. 

“Rather than being made by a really small group with a very limited perspective, having a bigger board allows more voices and different perspectives within the executive decision-making,” Gabi said. 

On Oct. 18, the MUN team competed in the first conference of the year at Carl Sandburg High School on Chicago’s North Side. The team placed first, and every individual member also placed, with half of those placing first.

“I could not have been happier or more proud of what the team accomplished at CSMUN,” Maggie said. “I think it is literally unprecedented in the history of the team to have taken this many kids and have every single one of them place in their respective committees.” 

Although the finalized elections did not have much impact on how the team prepared for CSMUN, Gabi noticed a better team environment that positively impacted their performance.

“I think it definitely made the energy on the team a lot better going into the conference,” Gabi said. “I’m sure that had some impact on people’s mentality going into the conference.”

Board Officials:

Secretaries-general: Daniel Chang and Maggie Yagan 

Undersecretaries-generals of the general assembly: Isabella Huang, Gabi Novak and Theo Lach

Undersecretaries-generals of crisis: Austen Wu and Arjun Sawhney 

Undersecretaries-generals of middle school Model UN and LabMUNC: Sofia Caldentey, Adrian Greenstone, Ishie Holz and Jessica Stainton-Simmons