Two faculty members and 19 students from UMSL participated in the 20th Midwest Model European Union at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Brittany Gray put in extra hours each week studying the ins and outs of Slovenia and the role of the country’s Directorate General Natasa Pirc Musar. The research was not for a report or paper, but for the role Gray would assume at the 20th Midwest Model European Union at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Gray, a senior majoring in business administration with a marketing emphasis at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, won first place in the directorate general room.

UMSL student Brittany Gray won first place in the directorate general room during the annual Midwest Model European Union at Indiana University in Bloomington.

“I learned a lot more about the process of how proposals are handled and how they move between the various groups,” she said. “They say the best way to learn is to actually get your hands dirty and try it yourself. I couldn’t agree more in this situation. We all had fun and made many new friends while still accomplishing our goal of learning something about the EU. It was a blast, and I would love to do it again.”

Every April, more than 160 college and university students meet to decide the future of the European Union. They play the roles of prime ministers, presidents, ambassadors, commissioners, ministers and diplomats. They spend three days haggling over policy, resolving disputes, building compromises and charting the course of European unity.

Betty Vining, assistant teaching professor of marketing at UMSL, and Joyce Mushaben, Curators’ Professor of Political Science at UMSL, led 19 UMSL students to this year’s competition where 12 universities represented 28 countries  in the European Union. UMSL teams represented Spain, Estonia and Slovenia. Students vote on the best in each room. Brent Simmonds, a senior public policy administration major at UMSL, earned third place as finance minister of Estonia.