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From left: Hemanth Tadepalli, Robin Pelayo, Austin Schmitz, Kevin Patterson and Dr. Babak Elahi.

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Kettering University’s Model United Nations team attended the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference in Boston on Feb. 9-13.

Kettering’s delegation of Kevin Patterson (’24, EE), Robin Pelayo (’22, CS/Applied Mathematics), Austin Schmitz (’22, ME), Hemanth Tadepalli (’23, CS) and Liberal Studies Department Chairman Dr. Babak Elahi was selected to represent the Disarmament and International Security Committee (DISEC) and the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (SOCHUM) for the country of Paraguay. About 130 schools represented 43 countries during the 68th annual event.

As part of the DISEC, the team presented a resolution on the Proliferation of Drone Technology, which was created in collaboration with other teams. The resolution defined the values and ethics of drone technology, including commercial and military usage.

“With cybersecurity being an important aspect of this and having our technical expertise from Kettering, we were so useful in the debates and construction of our paper,” said the team’s head delegate Hemanth Tadepalli. “Additionally, we created a resolution that defined when drones should be used as well as who should have control.”

In the SOCHUM, the team addressed issues facing non-self-governing territories given that their administering powers don’t have existing systems of accountability. They chose the position that citizens of non-self-governing territories should have the right to bring up issues to the United Nations (UN) regarding their culture, heritage, traditions and artifacts and that their administering powers should not vote on issues concerning non-self-governing territories.

“We believe that they have the right to either become their own nation or integrate into their administering power with the guarantee from the UN that all referendums would be fair and any abuses of power or destruction of indigenous culture would result in swift action from the UN,” said Kettering delegate Austin Schmitz.

Others agreed, and their resolution was passed.

Tadepalli said the team plans to attend more conferences next year. Students interested in participating can email him at tade2477@kettering.edu or Dr. Michael Callahan at mcallaha@kettering.edu.

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A team of 30 Kettering University students participated virtually in the 2022 DECA State Career Development Conference Feb. 3-5. Six other universities also participated.

The team, which consists of business, engineering, science, technology and math majors, took home eight first-place awards, nine second-place awards and four third-place awards.

Kettering had the second-largest participating team, with half of its members participating in collegiate DECA for the first time.

Twenty-one team members are eligible to compete in the International Career Development Conference on April 9-12 in Baltimore.

The other six universities that competed were Clearly University, Davenport University, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State University, Northwood University and Michigan Technological University.

DECA promotes professionalism through business and entrepreneurship at both the collegiate and high school levels throughout the world.

To learn more about the DECA team, contact Dr. Ken Williams at kwilliams@kettering.edu.