Aragon’s Harvard Model Congress takes home awards

Every year, Aragon’s Harvard Model Congress (HMC) Club prepares its members for a conference hosted during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in San Francisco. This year, 22 Aragon students attended the conference. “The conference is a simulation of the US government,” said senior and HMC co-president Andres Zimmermann. “Each delegate plays a certain congressperson, senator [or] cabinet secretary. We want students to learn about how their nation’s government operates, hopefully making them more informed voters in the future.”
Last year, organizers reduced the length of the conference by a day, making the schedule more flexible for students who needed to travel or wanted to tour the city on the last day.
“HMC’s conference is trying to introduce the new generation with politics, public speaking and debate,” said senior and HMC Co-President Kyle Thompson. “Not only is it important to stay updated on current events and learn how political systems work, but it’s also really important to be able to get this experience of working with other people.”
Lilly Loghmani enjoyed the opportunity to debate from someone else’s point of view.
“You really have to embody somebody else. … it gives you more perspective,” Loghmani said. “It [also] teaches you how to argue and write resolutions with something you may not agree with yourself. ”
This year, the club introduced members to the United States impeachment process and the immigration crisis. They also practiced HMC’s debate style and how to write bills.
“I think that we were well prepared [for the conference] because we [got] a packet of all the [conference] information we need,” said sophomore and HMC member Julia Jeck. “I came in as someone who didn’t really know what they were doing and now I think I have a much better grasp.”
HMC spent the last few weeks going over logistics.
Seniors Thompson and Zimmerman took on the organizing of the event, with help from club adviser Scott Silton. Planning took them around 7 to ten hours.
Harvard students organize the conference each year. This year, they made decisions slowly. As a result, HMC’s members had little time to prepare for the conference.
“The topics were not set for all of the committee’s until just a few weeks before the conference,” Silton said. “The background guides that go along with the topics were not published until less than two weeks before they wanted a position paper from every delegate, making the research very rushed.”
Another important skill the conference taught the attendees was the ability to create compromise.
“I learned [through the conference] that I have to put aside my own views and say what my representative says,” Loghmani said. “I learned how to find middle ground with people and not just be firm on [my] stance.”
Many students come from all around the world to attend the conference.
“I think it’s great that there are kids … who want to make a big trip just to [be part] of this great learning opportunity,” Jeck said. “It shows a good commitment to the club and to learning. … It really adds to the diversity of public opinions.”
Besides just the conference, special committees attended the “midnight crisis,” an event held from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. to debate on a simulated disaster. This year, the midnight crisis covered the Kurds, an Iranian minority in Turkey who declared independence from the Turkish government. The simulation varied slightly within each special committee, but in general, it debated over which side the U.S. should support. In the end, each special committee was able to resolve the issue.
“I think [the conflict] was generally handled pretty well,” said junior Shelby Cherkas, an HMC member. “The thing … is that as fun and interesting as it is to talk about world politics, like it’s all a game, foreign policy is people’s lives. And that’s kind of what we have to remember when we do … this.”
Multiple members from Aragon received awards at the conference. Shelby Cherkas received Best Delegate CIA, Lilly Loghmani received Best Delegate NSC, Andres Zimmermann and Alex Adelman received Honorable Mention Supreme Court, Kyle Thompson received Honorable Mention NASA and Kayla Li received Best Delegate NASA.
“Aragon kids got a lot of awards, especially from the special programs,” Cherkas said. “I was really proud to see our upperclassmen, especially the girls, take the Best Delegate Certificates home.”
Next year, members will have the opportunity to play a different role and discuss a new topic that affects our nation and its people.