David Denison ’11 Awarded Best Delegate at Harvard’s Model UN

By Steven Fletcher ’12

Twenty-five hundred students attended Harvard University’s National Model United Nations at Boston’s Park Plaza hotel this past weekend. Seventeen were from Gordon College. One walked away with the title “Best Delegate” for his committee.

The seventeen, a mix of political studies, international affairs, philosophy and music majors led by Paul Brink, associate professor of political studies, returned from the weekend-long conference on February 15. David Denison ’11, an international affairs and philosophy major from Windsor, CO, returned with the Best Delegate award. Denison served as the Tanzanian representative to the UN Development Committee, which included nearly 40 other delegates from colleges and universities across the country, representing countries the world over.

Best Delegate stands as the highest award a delegate can receive at the Model UN, and it usually falls into the hands of Yale or Harvard students. Denison’s honor marks the first time in Gordon’s involvement in Model UN that a student has received an award.

The Best Delegate award is given by the committee staff, which is comprised of other student delegates and takes a wholistic view of the delegate’s performance over the weekend. The honor takes into account attendance, participation, skill, presentations, and everything in between.

“David had to master the topic, the jurisdiction and scope of the committee’s purpose, and he excelled at each,” said Brink. “This award is really exciting for Gordon and, of course, for David because he’d worked so hard preparing for the event. Just ask him how much sleep he got.”