Dexter High School’s High Achieving Model United Nations Team

Dexter High School’s Model United Nations Team earned a runner up finish at Oakland University’s Model United Nations 8th Annual High School Conference.

The competition had nearly 200 delegates from the Greater Metro Detroit and surrounding area.  Dexter’s 10 member delegation also brought home recognition in seven areas.

This was Dexter’s first time participating in this conference. The theme for the event was “International Labor: We All Lift Together.”  It was held on April 4-5.

The Sun Times News connected with DHS teacher and Model United Nations Advisor Jaime Dudash to learn more about the students’ success.

Here is the Dexter delegation and how they were recognized:

The students were honored for position papers, which are judged before the competition. Dudash said these speak to the strong writing ability of the delegate to reflect the general aspects that their nation would have in anticipation of the conference on the topic.

At the conference the students broke into committees: to debate, caucus, and make deals.

Individual delegate honors were broken into “Excellent Honors” for high honors for their committee work over the two day conference and “Superior Honors” for highesthonors for their committee work over the two day conference. Additionally, one student in each of the six committees came away with the Gavel Award to the student with the Top Honors.

Dudash said it was an excellent job by the team netting top honors as a team as well. 

The conference offered three team awards for large schools: First, Second and Third. 

Third place went to Troy High School, a large school district in Oakland County that usually has 40-50 delegates at conferences. Dexter earned Second place behind the strong efforts of their delegation while top honors went to Bloomfield Hills. 

Dudash said both of these programs are led by dynamic advisors who put on a conference each year called SEMMUNA (SouthEast Michigan Model UN) along with other Model United Nations clubs in the metro Detroit Area. He said these schools are the gold standard for excellence, “so to be recognized in the same sentence is a real honor.”

DHS has attended five conferences so far this year. It has two more conferences left including one Dexter will be hosting later this month.