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Hunter Student Plays Key Role in Global Model UN Program in Malaysia

Hunter College junior Jeffrey Ruiz was chosen as the student representative at the launch of the Malaysia Global Model U.N. Program 2010 (GMUN 2010), which will take place this July.

In addition, Ruiz has been named a co-chair of the Program Committee for GMUN 2010, along with another Hunter junior, Christine Batilloro.  Ruiz and Batilloro are both head delegates on the Hunter College Model U.N. Team.  Ruiz was chosen for his new post at a meeting held earlier this month at U.N. headquarters in New York.

More than a thousand top-level college and university students from all over the world are expected to attend the Global Model United Nations Conference in Malaysia, which is part of the U.N. effort to encourage young people to strive on behalf of peace and development.  The aim of the Malaysia meeting is to build on the success of the inaugural Global Model U.N. Conference, held in Geneva last summer.

Emphasizing the importance of the Model U.N. meetings, Kiyo Akasaka, U.N. undersecretary-general for communications and public information, stressed that “It is crucial to engage young people.”

Added Ruiz, “As students we study law, theory, the sciences, and history, “but we rarely have the opportunity to apply what we learn in order to come up with innovative solutions to the problems facing people the world over—such as extreme poverty, nuclear disarmament, epidemics, and, as we have recently seen, terrible natural disaster.  Model United Nations brings students as close to hands-on work as one can get in trying to draft plausible solutions and to experience the indispensable value of dialogue and compromise.”

Hunter’s Model United Nations Team has competed at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Oxford, and has consistently won honors.  Most members of the team are students in Hunter’s Model U.N. class, a political science course taught by Professor Pamela Falk, who also serves as advisor to the team.

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