Husband/Wife Team A Winning One For WHREA

Greg and Lauren Krueger are both a winning team personally and also as leaders of an award-winning team, the Model United Nations Club. Greg, a WHRHS history teacher and Lauren, a guidance counselor, met back in 2009 when they were both going through the Watchung Hills new teacher/staff orientation program. Greg was one year out of college after earning his bachelor’s degree in social studies education from the University of Delaware and Lauren had recently completed her master’s from TCNJ in school counseling. To say they hit it off would be an understatement seeing as how they were married in December of 2011!

Greg started out sharing a classroom with his WHRHS mentor, Dr. Sean Digiovanna, also a social studies teacher and President of the Watchung Hills Regional Education Association. Greg credits Sean with helping him off to such a positive start at school, and in particular with his getting important experience with Model UN. Greg observed Sean advising the club and so was ready to take on the advisor role in 2011 when Sean became association president and had to give up the time-consuming task as a result.

Lauren became co-advisor with Greg and the two have led the club to numerous awards together. The Model UN Club attends two important conferences a year, one at Rutgers and another in Philadelphia. Model United Nations conferences offer enterprising students the opportunity to develop and improve a myriad of essential skills such as public speaking, researching, resolution writing, debating and, critically, collaborative and team work abilities

In the 2011-2012 school year, The WHRHS team won first place in the small school category in Philadelphia, an amazing accomplishment. Although WHRHS is not itself a small school, the category is determined by the number of delegates the school brings to the conference. The WHRHS team was considered a “small team” and this is why they were competing in the small school category.

Although large meetings like those in New Brunswick and Philly are wonderful for students, Greg and Lauren felt that their students would also benefit from a smaller endeavor, one where they could take on even more leadership roles. They therefore appealed to IDIA, the organization that runs Model UN nationally, and received approval to host a small, local UN conference at Watchung Hills. Thus in the spring, WHRHS is now home to a small UN conference where Watchung Hills students get the chance not only to participate, but to organize and run the conference as well.

Greg and Lauren keep busy beyond their roles as Model UN advisors. Greg is junior varsity lacrosse coach and Lauren is about to take over as the head coordinator of SAT exams. In addition, Lauren dedicates time in the summer to doing college tours which help her in her role as guidance counselor. In 2010, Lauren went on a whirlwind college tour, visiting three colleges per day for five consecutive days. More recently, she went this past April on a Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges tour to visit six colleges. This helps her not only advise students better in terms of a good fit for college, but also helps build rapport with admissions offices so as to help her students with the best approach for gaining admission to their “reach” schools.

Watchung Hills is fortunate to have a dynamic and enthusiastic pair of employees like Greg and Lauren Krueger and the Watchung Hills Regional Education Association proudly thanks them for all of their dedication and hard work.