3/6/25

By FHSU University Communications

HAYS, Kan. – A 12-member team of student delegates from Fort Hays State University journeyed to St. Louis, Mo., to compete at the annual Midwest Model United Nations competition. The competition took place between February 19-22 and involved more than 200 college students from across the United States.

“Last year, we sent a team of five to St. Louis and won a single Honorable Mention award. This year, with 12 delegates, we won eight awards and finished number three in the award count,” said FHSU Model UN advisor and associate professor of political science, Dr. Jay Steinmetz.  

Model UN is a competitive collegiate experience where student delegates advance UN policy in specific committees and work toward resolutions that can ultimately pass the main plenary body. The competition is a superior test of each student’s skills in public speaking, writing resolutions, following rules of order, and researching specific countries and that country’s policy stances.  

Students work incredibly hard to prepare for intense competition days filled with negotiations, responses to crisis events, positioning their teams and individuals as principal sponsors and writers of resolutions, and building alliances.

“The competition is dynamic, fluid, intense,” Steinmetz said. “The students love it—in my experience, I have observed that students like strict professionalism and the demands and rigors of intense negotiations; all of this makes the conference more fun and impactful for them.”

This year in St. Louis, four-person teams from FHSU represented the nations of Finland, Moldova, and Ethiopia. The 2025 team included students from diverse backgrounds, majors, home countries, and policy perspectives.

“We had Biology majors, Informatics majors, Music majors, Honor’s College students, student-athletes, local students from Western Kansas, and international students from Israel, Senegal, and Togo,” said Daniel Bechle, a sophomore from Aurora, Colo.

Bechle was one of four FHSU students to take home an individual award. He was selected by the other Model UN delegates to receive the Delegates Choice award. Other individual award winners include Luke Hampl, a junior from Andover who took home a Position Paper Award; Mayan Paz, a sophomore from Israel, who won the Most Distinguished Delegate Award; and Mickey Mason, a senior from Ulysses, who earned an Honorable Mention Delegation Award.

“I think we earned a lot of respect this year,” Bechle said. “We raised the profile of our program and made some new friends, including a delegate from Johnson County Community College, who I am trying to get to transfer to FHSU.”

Hannah Caycedo from Manhattan was a member of FHSU’s team of delegates that represented the nation of Ethiopia and a high school senior in FHSU’s Kansas Academy of Math and Science (KAMS) residential college program.

“I was nervous, especially with the part where we had to research existing UN precedents and write proposals based on those precedents,” Caycedo said. “I got more comfortable as the competition progressed and enjoyed working with the delegates representing Mozambique and South Africa on a youth disarmament initiative.” 

Plans are underway for the FHSU team to return to competition next academic year, including a trip to Chicago for the November American Model United Nations conference. Plans are also underway to bring the Model UN experience to Western Kansas. The inaugural Heartland Model UN Conference is tentatively scheduled for October of this year.