USN Students Gettin' "YIGgy" With It
by Mackey Luffman, high school history teacher
It was another busy year for USN's delegation to the Youth In Government conference, the simulation of state government facilitated by the YMCA's Center for Civic Engagement. Students serve as legislators, justices, and appellate attorneys, and they present and debate bills and cases that illustrate the complexities and realities of Tennessee state government and the issues that face our state. What happened, you might ask? Click, read, and learn.
It was another busy year for USN's delegation to the Youth In Government conference, the simulation of state government facilitated by the YMCA's Center for Civic Engagement. Students serve as legislators, justices, and appellate attorneys, and they present and debate bills and cases that illustrate the complexities and realities of Tennessee state government and the issues that face our state. What happened, you might ask? Click, read, and learn.
Twenty-nine high school students from USN spent their time this weekend serving in a variety of roles. A feature of this conference is the vital role of elected student leaders, and USN students continue the traditions established by previous generations of participants. Junior Emily Davis served as the Speaker of the Blue (Novice) House of Representatives and was responsible for facilitating debate and managing the House docket and agenda. Senior Case Nieboer and juniors Caroline Zhao and Neil Zheng served as Associate Justices on the State Supreme Court and heard a variety of arguments on appellate cases from student lawyer teams. Junior Mackenzie Myers served the Court as its Clerk.
In the Red (experienced) Senate, USN was ably represented by four seniors: Reid Dickerson, Nicholas Ng, Mark Rusznak, and Mira Wasserman. Their bills (one legalized prostitution and the other attempted to secede from the United States) prompted lively debate and upheld USN's reputation for leading constructive and respectful discussion of pressing social and legal issues. For her efforts in the Senate, Wasserman was nominated for an Outstanding Statesman Award.
In the Red House of Representatives, juniors Douglas Corzine, Nishant Upender, and Silas Wuerth and sophomores Youssef Doss, Starina D'Souza, Sam Fisher, Bradford Johnson, Jacob Snyder, and Maggie Young and freshman Alice May navigated the treacherous waters of teenage politics while debating pressing state issues including the creation of a Tennessee state health insurance exchange, legalizing same-sex marriages and amending Tennessee's alcohol sales laws. For their efforts, Upender, Wuerth, and Doss were all nominated for Outstanding Statesman Awards. In the Blue House of Representatives, sophomores Jordan Burnett and Aidan Rowan and freshmen Camille Townson and Puja Jagasia debated similar bills on similar issues.
In the Supreme Court, juniors Maurice Chiang, Rebecca Clark, Chandler Floyd, and Alexandria Yu and freshmen Dhruv Khetarpal and Alex Morgan argued cases as appellate attorneys. The strength of their performances placed Chiang and Floyd against Clark and Yu in the final case, which is essentially the "championship round" of the legal arguments. In a vibrant and intense case, Clark and Yu won the Outstanding Lawyer Team Award to accompany their Outstanding Brief Award for their briefs written in preparation for the conference. Finally, for her leadership from the bench, Associate Justice Zhao earned the Jenny Faenza Outstanding Justice Award!
A sideshow of the YIG conference is its own quiz bowl competition, and the USN team of Doss, D'Souza, Johnson, Rowan, and Snyder defeated teams from Franklin HS, Hume-Fogg and MUS on the path to their first ever "YIG Bowl" championship!
For his efforts as a statesman in the Red House of Representatives, Douglas Corzine was selected to join the top delegates at the conference to serve on Tennessee's state delegation to the Conference on National Affairs, a national simulation of the legislative process that brings the best young statespeople from around the country together for a summer conference. Corzine is the latest in a string of USN representatives selected for this honor, including Isaac Gabella '14, Cyrus Shick '13, and Justin Maffett '12, among other recent graduates.
Finally, the conference participants elected the student officers for next year's conference. Returning to leadership roles will be Emily Davis, elected as Speaker of the Red House; Caroline Zhao, elected to Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court; Alexandria Yu, elected to Associate Justice, and Mackenzie Myers, re-elected as Clerk of the Court.
Please congratulate all these students for their efforts and their successes!
Date Posted 
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Justin Karpinos4/3/2014 @ 8:45 AMNice headline.
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1200 County Hospital Road
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2000 Edgehill Ave.
Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 615-321-8000
Fax: 615-321-0889
Email: info@usn.org
River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218
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University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.