Claremont, Calif. (February 21, 2014) — Pitzer College students Benjamin Levine ’14 and Elizabeth (Biz) Pedersen ’14 received Best Delegate awards, and Braden Holstege ’14 won an honorable mention, at the 2014 Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) Conference. This is the sixth consecutive year that one or more Pitzer students have been recognized at HNMUN, held this year on February 13-16 in Boston, Mass.
Levine, Pedersen and Holstege were part of a team of 16 Pitzer students who traveled across the country to participate in the nation’s oldest and largest Model UN. Pitzer’s delegation represented the Republic of the Sudan and served on a variety of committees that tackled issues ranging from conflict in Yemen to governing multinational corporations. During the conference, students spent long days giving speeches in committee rooms, caucusing with delegates from other nations and writing resolutions designed to solve global problems.
Pedersen, a philosophy and Middle Eastern studies double major, served as the Pitzer team’s co-lead delegate. This was her fourth year as a HNMUN delegate. Pedersen is now Pitzer’s most highly decorated delegate, having won the Best Delegate award in 2011 and an honorable mention in 2013. Holstege and Levine are both majoring in economics. Holstege is a Robert Day Scholar and won an Outstanding Delegate award at the 2012 HNMUN. Last year, Levine was among the first group of college juniors in the country to receive offers from Teach For America; he plans to teach in a low-income community in Los Angeles after graduation.
Fletcher Jones Associate Professor of Political Studies Geoffrey Herrera serves as Pitzer’s Model UN faculty adviser.
Founded in 1955, HNMUN brings together more than 3,000 students and faculty from colleges and universities around the world to simulate the activities of the UN.
