McKendree Invitational Model United Nations
McKendree hosts a Model United Nations conference for local high schools. We have
held this conference for over 50 years! It is the sixth longest-running Model UN conference
in the country!
Participating high schools include: Althoff, Belleville East, Belleville West, Christian
Brothers College (MO), Collinsville, Freeburg, Gibault, Highland, Lebanon, Mascoutah,
O'Fallon, Okawville, Pana, Springfield, Triad, Union (MO) and Valmeyer.
Upcoming Conferences
Spring 2025 March 4-6, 2025
Fall 2025 November 12-13, 2025
Spring 2026 March 3-5, 2026
2025 Spring Committees
Alumni Testimonials
Attending Model UN in high school was the reason I went to McKendree. We live in a world where empathy, compromise, and understanding are lacking. Model UN provided a safe environment where a young person like me was able to learn how to assess the surrounding world, interact with strangers, navigate conflict, and strive to achieve some level of understanding so that solutions to difficult problems could be attempted.
Paul Woodruff, Class of 2007
Vice President – Community Development
St. Louis Community Credit Union
I had the good fortune to participate as a high schooler at McKendree’s conferences, which attracted me to McKendree University. The collegiate conferences I attended created an exciting mix of heated debate and breaking stalemates. You can learn a lot about problem solving and people through all night consensus building and emergency sessions. Model UN made me better at critically analyzing sources, understanding complex political and cultural systems, and sorting through often clashing viewpoints. These are tools that I still use in my career of historical interpretation. Model UN opens your worldview and makes you a more critical thinker.
Benjamin Pollard, Class of 2013
Site Interpretive Coordinator
Lewis & Clark State Historic Site
Model UN provides an opportunity to develop skills which few other programs can match. Understanding competing views, stepping into the shoes of another nation, and learning to peacefully address the world's problems while practicing skills including public speaking, truly collaborative creation, and coming to understand compromise. Our relationships, businesses, politics, and world would be better with more people experiencing Model UN.
Steve Loftus, Class of 2008
Senior Cyber Security Engineer, UNCOMN
Please email modelun@mckendree.edu with any questions about our program.
