A science teacher advising a Model United Nations (MUN) team may present a combination of duties that raises eyebrows at other schools. But at St. Andrew’s, it’s not so weird for teachers to touch seemingly disparate aspects of school life—teaching chemistry, checking dorms as co-dean of residential life, coaching cross-country, and advising the Model UN program is just all in a day’s work for Will Rehrig ’11. 

As an undergraduate student at the University of Delaware studying chemical engineering, Rehrig was a member of the university’s Model UN team. He brought that passion for history back to St. Andrew’s as a faculty member in 2017, and facilitated the first Model UN conference hosted at St. Andrew’s in November 2018. 

Model United Nations allows high schoolers to engage with and debate world issues, both current and historical, furthering their understanding of the United Nations and international relations, while also strengthening their skills in debate, cooperation, critical thinking, and research. MUN conferences are organized into numerous committees where students consider specific issues of global importance, representing member countries as delegates. 

The sixth-annual St. Andrew’s Model UN conference, known as SASMUN, was held on Nov. 5, 2023, with 140 students from local schools, along with nearly 20 St. Andrew’s students, in attendance as delegates. 

Months of planning go into the conference, and Rehrig says that student leaders are at the helm of the organizing. 

“It’s an incredible leadership experience for them in terms of having to plan and put together a committee, and thinking about what a whole day of this looks like,” says Rehrig. 

Two students, Zachary Macalintal ’24 and Caroline Adle ’24, served as secretary general and executive director, and they worked with Rehrig to prepare the logistics for the conference, as well as lead a team of students in planning the content for the committees they chaired. Over the summer of 2023, the students started writing background guides for their respective committees.

“Zachary and Caroline worked tirelessly to bring the conference to fruition, supporting each committee in developing their content and training the staff in chairing and running their committee,” says Rehrig. 

Macalintal and Adle both joined the MUN team during their III Form year, with Macalintal looking for something new to get involved in, and Adle encouraged to join by two upperclassmen who were both passionate about MUN. 

“This club gave me the resources and experience to represent something greater than myself,” says Macalintal. “Whether it was reading some of the most amazing background guides, sending back-and-forth emails to Caroline about MUN… each moment [of SASMUN 2023] felt like the culmination of my [Model UN] career.”

The conference also aims to provide St. Andrew’s students with a low-stakes opportunity to check out if Model UN is something they may be interested in, since the conference is on their home turf with their friends leading the charge. 

The SASMUN conference, says Rehrig, is committed to distinguishing itself as the premier, one-day Model UN conference in Delaware. The student leadership aims to focus on teaching, learning, and guiding, while also balancing a competitive environment for the more experienced delegates. He adds that thorough background guides and challenging topics at the SASMUN conference push the expectations of a high school Model UN conference. 

“Delegates and advisors commented on the high-level committee content, smooth organization and logistics, and competitive and supportive atmosphere,” says Rehrig of the response to this past year’s SASMUN. 

The delegates also were simply into it. 

“I love how deeply invested the delegates get,” says Adle. “Many delegates continue to debate over lunch, so I loved walking around the lunch room and picking up on little snippets of conversation.”

This upcoming school year, returning members of the St. Andrew’s MUN team—including SASMUN Secretary General Peter Bird ’25, MUN Co-President and SASMUN Deputy Director General Amanda Meng ’25, and MUN Co-President and SASMUN Director of Registration Grace Anne Doyle ’25—will pick up planning for the fall 2024 SASMUN conference, and continue to build bonds with each other and the delegates from neighboring schools.