STATESBORO — Shya Lewis of Richmond Hill is a member of Georgia Southern’s Model UN delegation, which recently returned from the National Model United Nations Conference with an Outstanding Delegation Award. The award was GSU’s ninth in 10 years. Georgia Southern was also recognized for Outstanding Position Paper Writing for the 14th time in 15 years. The team competed against more than 200 schools and more than 3,600 delegates from around the world.

The 20 Georgia Southern student delegates are part of programs including political science, international studies, nutrition and food science, computer science, public administration and public health. This year’s delegation, formed in fall 2015, represented Israel, and for the last six months has been studying the social, cultural and political history of Israel. This knowledge was used to write position papers from an Israeli perspective on topics including cybersecurity, sustainable development, cooperation in outer space, climate change and gender-based violence.

The Georgia Southern Model UN program is one of the oldest and most continuous programs of its kind in the United States, having celebrated its 45th year in 2016.