ASK Hosts Model UN ‘Mini-Mock’ Last Saturday

By Andrew Erickson

For the first time ever, Mini-Mock, an annual debate organized by Model United Nations, was held at The ASK Academy last Saturday. Model United Nations, known also as Model UN, is a club where scholars from different schools  represent a real country and debate over current international affairs against other teams. Model UN delegates travel to various places where debates are held, one being the Santa Fe Roundhouse. These topics are decided on in September at Model UN’s Mini-Mock. 

Each year Mini- Mock is held in different places around the Albuquerque area but this time it was held at The ASK Academy.

“Albuquerque Academy is usually the host and had not responded and we were looking for a place,” said ASK Model UN Coordinator, Krista Pink, “ I wanted to bring people here to ASK because I thought it would be a nice way to showcase our school.”

On Saturday, around 200 students from the Albuquerque area flooded the halls and classrooms of ASK.

“Everyone fell in their place and even though our campus is small, everyone was accommodated well but it seemed well organized from the outside,” said high school project manager Cheryl Walker. “[but] it was more casual than I expected.”

On Saturday’s Mini-Mock, there were five committees, separated into five different packed classrooms, where students waged debated for nearly three hours. Students worked to develop relevant topics for each committee in preparation for Santa Fe. Some of the topics that were decided on were human trafficking prevention, nuclear disarmament, climate change and preventing inflation in developing countries.

“There was a lot of kids and it was kind of scary because there were so many people in [General Assembly],” said Junior Jasmyn Rangel, “but the other kids were nice, some came up to me just to talk.”

Walker commented on the intimidation factor, but eventually saw students feeling comfortable. 

“It was interesting that I could see that students were nervous, which I don’t see occasionally in class,” said Walker, “But I think that when people had a chance to speak, there was very insightful and complex commentary, people responded well to each other.”

Pink said the  Mini-Mock conference was a success and she was proud of the role of role of both current and former ASK scholars.

“Katie Rader, Jona Molina, and Noelle Hoeing, some ASK alumni came to chair for us and did a great job,” she said. “The MUN team put together everything very well in every way possible which made it a successful conference; it was outstanding.”

Students from all over the state attended Model UN’s Mini-Mock at ASK on Saturday Photos by Cheryl Walker