Five JCC students participated in the annual SUNY Model European Union Simulation (SUNYMEU) held earlier this month at the University of Limerick in Ireland.

Aubrey Richir from JCC’s Jamestown Campus and Melissa Graves, Mariah Wild, Amber Cheladyn, and Chad Austin from the Cattaraugus County Campus were accompanied by JCC faculty members Gregory Rabb and Martha Zenns. The JCC students represented Sweden and Latvia.

JCC’s course on the EU simulation is taught via interactive television technology between the Jamestown and Olean campuses.

This year’s program was “European Council Summit: The Spanish Presidency.” Students were assigned a role as a representative of a larger delegation (an EU country or the EU Commission), as heads of government, foreign ministers, EU commissioners, or even, for journalism majors, as members of the press corps.

Over 120 students from several SUNY colleges as well as Ithaca College and Drake University joined students from partner institutions in EU member states Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, and Ireland for the four-day program.

The keynote address was delivered by Francis Jacobs, head of the European Parliament offices in Dublin.

The Institute for European Union Studies at SUNY is the first and oldest EU simulation in the country and was established under the leadership of JCC’s political science department in 1988.