Students in Hamilton's NYC program went to the United Nations on Jan. 28 for a general tour. International relations concentrator Dimitru Kaigorodov ’16 contacted his former Hamilton professor Calin Trenkov-Wermuth ’00 who now works who now works at the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Trenkov-Wermuth met the group and answered questions about his work at the United Nations.
Professor of English Patricia O’Neill is director of this semester’s program in New York City, which is focusing on the topic of “Global Media.”
The United Nations was established in 1945 and in recent years there have been much needed renovations made to the three buildings that are situated on land that is legally international territory. Students viewed various meeting rooms and displays that represent the UN’s declaration on human rights and its goals for the millennium as well as art works donated by various countries. One of the displays was of a "school in a box" that has enough supplies to set up a school anywhere. Since one of the central concerns of the UN is supporting universal education, these school boxes are designed to work in places where schools have been destroyed or in refugee camps.
A Holocaust commemorative event was being held in the general assembly room, so students could only peek through the glass doors. But sitting in the Security Council chambers, constructed by Norway, and the room for meetings of the Economics and Social Council, constructed by Sweden, demonstrated the wide-ranging scope of the UN's concerns and activities. As an international territory with its own police and fire department, the UN also has its own post office where several students posted cards using UN stamps.