What Lies @ the Heart: National Model United Nations at Patrick Henry College (Purcellville, VA)

In 2006 a student named Keren McElvy asked me to help her with getting National Model UN going at Patrick Henry College, a Christian Classical Liberal Arts College literally across the street from my house in beautiful Purcellville, VA. I was the Dean's Assistant and later the executive assistant to both the Provost and the President of the college.

I happy agreed to help Keren and took over all of the logistics plus I went as chaperone. What a blast we had doing it! It was a lot of work, but when I took the first ever delegation of 35 students to the NMUN in New York City in 2006, it was epic. We stayed at the Marriott on Times Square. We had meetings in the real United Nations General Assembly. I'd never even been to New York City before. I took another delegation of 36 in 2007, and another still in 2008. This is an International forum of more than 3,400 university students and 220 faculty from five continents that attended in 2006 is the world’s largest simulation of the United Nations, and provides a forum for learning about the United Nations and a wide range of contemporary international issues. Each college/university represents a nation state while they are there. We were surrounded by the world! We'd get on an elevator and hear five languages. The simulation runs for a week and is very similar to what happens in the United Nations.

I'm proud to have played a pretty significant part in starting up this student club which as of 2023 is still running at the college.

PHC’s student-run club participates in the National Collegiate Conference Association, which holds its National Model United Nations conference in New York City every year.

PHC has regularly earned the "Outstanding Delegation" award, making PHC one of only 18 schools of over 300 participating internationally to receive this highest honor each year.

I absolutely loved working with the students at this college. Cream of the crop.