MODEL ARAB LEAGUE 2023 RECAP

The UA Little Rock Model Arab League team recently wrapped up their 2023 class with a trip to the national Model Arab League (MAL) conference in Washington D.C., where multiple members took home national awards.

An underrated class at the university, Model Arab League has been a consistent presence in the MAL community for years, and is spearheaded by Dr. Rebecca Glazier.

The conferences are put on by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, and through the council, students in the class get to meet diplomats from the nations they represent, and many renowned speakers.

This year at the national conference, every student who attended got to hear from the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state at the opening ceremony.

UALR represented the State of Qatar this year at the national and southeast regional conferences this year, and represented Qatar and Somalia at the bilateral conference held in Houston.

Bilateral was the first conference the class attended, as it is smaller and good training before the intensive national conference. Several students in the class chaired committees at the conference, and were involved with the secretariat, or the group that runs the conference. There, multiple students won Distinguished or Outstanding Delegation awards, and the team won an award for their representation of Qatar.

Next, the administrative team of the Model Arab League student organization traveled to Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to compete in the southeast regional conference for the first time ever.

At this conference, there were 8 committees, but UA Little Rock only brought 6 students, leaving the team at a disadvantage for overall team awards as they automatically received a score of zero in the two unstaffed committees.

Despite this, all six of the students that attended won an award in their committee, landing the team an Outstanding award for the representation of Qatar, which resulted in the collective gasp heard around the campus by the team (seriously multiple people brought up the gasping).

After SERMAL, the whole team traveled to D.C. for the national competition. After two days of exploring the city, a meeting with diplomats at the Qatari embassy and a tour of the Capitol Building, the team traveled to George Washington University for two full days of debating, writing and compromising.

Sunday morning marked the awards ceremony, and the UA Little Rock team won the most awards they ever have at the national level. Amelia Loken, Rebecca Little, Jack Schlotter, Yvonne Rodriguez, Chloe McGehee & Owen Haynes all won awards.

On top of that, Caleb Mimms and Owen Haynes were selected after an application and interview process to be a part of next year’s secretariat, with Mimms being selected as Assistant Secretary

General, and Haynes being selected to Chair the Arab Heads of State Committee. This is also the first time UA Little Rock students will be part of the national secretariat. Clearly, the program is growing and improving, but the team does not plan to stop soon. They are stepping up recruitment efforts and recently created a student organization for MAL.

It is important to note I myself have been a part of MAL for two years now and am totally biased in how awesome the class is. As I like to say, if you like to argue diplomatically, Model Arab League is probably for you.

BY CHLOE MCGEHEE