Interview of the Acting President of Anatolia Dr. Panos Vlachos

By Vasso Kourtoglou

What do you think about the Anatolia College Model United Nations?

I think that the Anatolia College Model United Nations is one of the most important and exciting opportunities our school offers to students. As I mentioned in my speech, earlier this morning, it is actually a program that looks at a student in a holistic way.  The students are engaged, inspired, and develop a number of skills like team work, persuasive writing and many other important things. Moreover, the students improve significantly their communication skills and become exposed to people from other countries which is one of the greatest initiatives. Also, Anatolia organizes it in a massive way. It allows a great number of people to participate when in other schools try to limit it and to excel it and they prepare it like a competition. These are great things about Anatolia and I am glad to see that students are responsive and faculty are really committed.

 

Do you believe that MUNs give students more skills to communicate better?

I think that this is one of the main features of this idea of the MUN, especially nowadays where in our society communication plays a very important role and now it is becoming more complicated because you need to have special skills to communicate with people, to be able to communicate at various different levels. It is by far a great tool to improve communication skills of students.

 

What do you think about the fact that more and more students join Model United Nations conferences every year?

I think that young people are looking at their lives and at their education in a different way, from a different point of view. Students often feel that this traditional setting of education may be boring to them. So, what they really want is to become engaged and that is why we see over all, especially in Anatolia College for example, the MUN and the ACSTAC conference, that students are attracted to these programs. They see these as an opportunity to do things that they really value and like. I believe this is true all over the world and education needs to adjust to this new way of how students are approaching learning, see you all run with it, and each year I see more and more student involvement and engagement to the MUN and that is for me what it is all about.

 

Before today, had you ever been involved in any other Model United Nations conference?

When I was a student, Model United Nations was not an option in Greece, so I was never involved as a student but I have known this conference for many years and especially the one we organize. Although, I have never participated in such a conference, I am quite aware of what the aim is and what we will accomplish through this conference.