Twelve students from the Global and Community Leadership Club spent Halloween weekend debating international issues like Ebola and decolonization at a Model United Nations conference in Atlanta.

Chaperoned by Mr. Michael Kelley, club adviser and history department chair, the students left campus after lunch on Friday, Oct. 31, to attend the three-day conference located at the downtown Hilton in Atlanta.  The trip was open to the entire student body, but gave priority to members of the club.

“It attempts to simulate the types of debate and discussion issues that the UN does, so it is divided into various committees that are similar to what the United Nations has,” Kelley said.  Committees included the World Health Organization, the International Criminal Justice and Police, decolonization, and the Security Council.

Before the conference, students were required to decide upon a country to represent and a committee on which to serve.  The students needed to research their country’s standpoints on a variety of issues in order to debate as if they were actual delegates of that country.

“The goal of it is to come up with a resolution that you want the UN to adopt that would be what your country would want in this area,” Kelley said.

The conference was divided into a series of meetings, ranging from three to four hours each, with breaks in between.

“It would be a combination of moderated caucuses and unmoderated caucuses.  A moderated caucus is when you would motion for people to come up to the mic to say their ideas for a certain topic, whereas in unmoderated caucuses, the chair would release all of the delegates to speak with themselves,” sophomore and conference attendee Meredith Fuchs said.

Fuchs said that while they did not celebrate Halloween in the traditional way, she is still glad she attended the conference and hopes to return.

Stratford sent a team to the conference approximately eighteen years ago, but since then had been unable to find enough interested students to return until this year.

The club hopes to attend a similarly structured Model UN conference at the University of Georgia this February.