Shea Reynolds walked onto the Franklin College campus in 2021 knowing she wanted to study political science.
She ultimately wanted to hold an office in the Senate.
On registration day, one of the political science professors asked if she had ever heard of Model UN and explained the program.
According to un.org, it’s a popular activity for those interested in learning more about how the United Nations operates, and hundreds of thousands of students worldwide take part every year at all educational levels.
The program aims to build and maintain strong links between the UN and Model UN participants across the globe. It does that through guides and workshops, which teach students how to make their simulations more accurate by visiting Model UN conferences and sharing firsthand knowledge of what the actual UN is like and through encouraging Model UN clubs to take real action to support UN values and the sustainable development goals.
Now that she has been a part of Franklin’s Model UN team for two years, Reynolds said she has a goal of working within international relations, more on a global level.
“Don’t be afraid to try new things because you never know what’s going to come out of it,” the 20-year-old said of her advice to others about pursuing their interests and passions beyond high school.
While she’s only wrapping up her second year on the Franklin campus, Reynolds is considered a credit senior. That’s because before graduating from Crothersville High School in 2021, she took college-level courses and earned an associate degree in general studies from Ivy Tech Community College through The University Academy. That program comes at no cost to Crothersville students.
She entered Franklin as a credit junior.
“That has helped significantly,” Reynolds said. “I tell people I’m a triple major, and I’m like, ‘It’s really not as hard as it sounds with coming in with an associate degree.’ Franklin College is a liberal arts institution, which means you’re not just taking classes within your discipline. You’re also taking general education. … So taking a lot of those general ed classes at Ivy Tech, I came in and jumped right into my discipline, what I wanted to do with my profession.”
Reynolds is triple majoring in political science, history and philosophy and minoring in leadership. She said she picked those concentrations due to her passions for history and helping people.
“When I lived in Crothersville and I was in high school, I worked on a lot of community projects, did a lot of philanthropy in the community and I was just really passionate about helping,” she said. “I decided to pursue political science so I could get into a position where I could help more people.”
Franklin restarted its Model UN program last school year after it was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A National Model United Nations conference is in New York City every year, but Franklin typically goes every other year. The college, however, went back-to-back years to make up for the missed time.
Franklin had 13 team members in 2021-22 and 11 in 2022-23. They met every other week during the fall and spring semesters to study and prepare for the conference. Franklin also has a January term, where immersive courses are offered abroad or on campus. During that month, the Model UN team met every day to plan strategy and learn more about the state it’s representing and the topics within the committees.
Reynolds said each school submits a list of 10 states it would like to represent. Bigger teams would choose large countries, while smaller teams would choose small countries.
“The bigger the state you are, the more committees you have to choose from, so you have to fill those positions,” she said. “Each state has different committees, and because we had 13 people last year and we have only 11 people this year, we had to choose a smaller state.”
Franklin was assigned Tajikistan in 2022 and Albania in 2023. The team split into committees with two or three people each. The committees are based on what each country has in the United Nations. Each committee gets two topics for the conference, and it’s their goal to talk to other teams and push for the topics.
Reynolds and her partner, Kendall Potts, wanted to push for safeguarding the world’s nuclear facilities, so that’s the topic Potts had prepared.
“We thought because it was so controversial and a heated topic right now due to the Russian-Ukrainian war that it would be a topic everyone would want to talk about,” Reynolds said.
As a committee in a room of about 300 people, however, they voted to talk about nuclear waste management instead.
“That was kind of surprising to us, and it’s not that I wasn’t prepared for it, but it was just we had to think quick on our heels about ‘OK, what’s our strategy going to be?’ because for the past couple of weeks, we had planned for her topic to be talked about first,” Reynolds said.
The teams then talked to people representing countries that are allies and proposed a solution. Reynolds said you don’t just propose your plan because you have to end up writing your solutions in a paper called a resolution. At the end of the conference, a vote is taken to pass the resolution or not.
“You have to have all of these other states sign onto your resolution, and you have to have so many sponsors or signatories, and then you work on that all week,” she said. “Usually, you end up merging your resolutions with other groups because at first, it starts out there are a bunch of little groups working on solutions, but the goal is ultimately to get it down to one paper that everybody can agree on because you want to build consensus and you want a single solution.”
Judges selected award winners to recognize during the closing ceremony held on the floor of the general assembly at the United Nations.
Franklin received the Outstanding Delegation award, which is the highest award conferred and ranks the team as one of the top in the world. In head-to-head competition, Franklin tied for the award with the University of Missouri and Baylor University.
Additionally, three duos received commendation for their work as a team. That included Reynolds and Potts being awarded Outstanding Position Paper for their presentation of Albania’s position on the topics confronted by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This top award indicates the papers were among the best in the world.
Reynolds said she and Potts researched Albania’s stance on the topics of nuclear waste management and safeguarding the world’s nuclear facilities.
“Sometimes, it’s difficult because some of these topics that the conference chooses, the state you represent doesn’t always have an outright opinion on them, so then you sort of have to write what do you think they would say,” she said.
The paper can be no longer than front and back single-spaced.
“It is the most difficult paper you’ll ever write in your life because sometimes, you have so much to say and so many different things you want to reference, and you have to condense that,” Reynolds said.
With Potts being a freshman and new to Model UN, Reynolds used the experience she gained at last year’s conference to lead the duo.
“Usually, a lot of people would describe me as being kind of reserved, kind of observant, but as a returner this year and Kendall, it’s her first year, I really had to step up and be more outgoing, be the one to initiate things, be the quick-witted one who had to find solutions when we had issues within the committee room,” Reynolds said. “It really pushed me as a person. I feel like I grew significantly from it.”
In 2022, Franklin won the Distinguished Delegation award, which is comparable to second place, and only had one committee bring home a position paper award. This year, Franklin returned home with a higher delegation award and three position paper awards.
Since Franklin won’t go to the conference in 2024, Reynolds plans to stay at the college two more years so she can compete as a senior in 2025.
“I definitely benefited from it because I thought I knew what I wanted to do. I worked for a political campaign last year during the midterms, and it was a good experience,” she said. “But at Model UN, I’m more passionate about the issues that are tackled at the global level, and if it wasn’t for me joining the team and trying this experience, I might have never found those passions.”
Through the program, she also attended a nuclear policy workshop in January in Chicago, Illinois. Scientists, policymakers and engineers described nuclear energy issues, and Reynolds got to tour Argonne National Laboratory.
“I feel like it gave me an opportunity to explore topics outside of my major,” she said. “There was no way I was going to learn about the science behind nuclear energy just being a history major, being a political science major, so I feel like it has given me a very good intersection to learn about other topics outside my discipline.”