South’s Model United Nations (UN) team brought 13 members to the Washington University Model United Nations Symposium (WUMUNS) in St. Louis, MO, Oct. 19-21 for the club’s first ever out-of-state conference.
Senior Tim Hofmockel, Model UN vice president, said that South students were delegates, or representatives, competing with delegates from schools across the Midwest.
“How it normally works is that we send our team of however many delegates, in this case 13, and each delegate is assigned to a conference,” Hofmockel said. “So, there’s the tournament and a [smaller] conference.”
At a typical Model UN conference, each team consists of a certain number of delegates. The delegates each get assigned to different committees that model those of the actual UN.
Committees discuss issues through a combination of moderated and unmoderated caucuses. A moderated caucus is a more professional setting where delegates give timed speeches arguing their stance on an issue. Unmoderated caucuses are less formal, conversational sessions, where, according to Hofmockel, “[delegates] really start to make solutions.”
During the committee sessions, delegates do research and write a paper stating their position on an issue in order to prepare for both their formal and informal discussion scenarios.
“Initially, it was really frightening,” sophomore Jane Brennan, a first-time participant, said. “It was really intimidating when you walked in to give your first speech. [It] was probably one of the scariest things I’ve done, and I love public speaking. Once you got through that first speech, it became fun and ultra-competitive, and you became just as involved as people were who had been doing it for years.”
According to Hofmockel, this wasn’t a typical conference for South’s Model UN team. Unlike most Model UN conferences, WUMUNS has a history of themes. With this year’s theme being Lord of the Rings, the conference had a committee in honor of the conference’s theme–The Council of Eldiron.
Also, Model UN realized the losses of seasoned GBS graduates from the Class of 2012, many of whom were seasoned veterans of Model UN, making this more of a year for rebuilding and gaining experience, according to Hofmockel.
Many of the delegates were representing the club for the first time, even in the team’s first out-of-state conference.
Sophomore Claire Fisher, also a new delegate, expressed that she experienced similar nervous feelings.
“I was really nervous, because I felt like I had to do well because I was being picked [to go to the conference],” Fisher said. “There were a lot of people in my committee who held leadership roles, so my goal was just to talk the first night. And eventually, I warmed up and started to have more fun.”
Prior to the conference, Shawn Kurian, a first-time Model UN member as well, felt nervous along with anticipation and excitement.
“This is a serious competition,” Shawn Kurian said. “Model UN is pretty renowned and it’s pretty formal; we have to dress up every day and do a lot of preparation. This is my first year doing Model UN, so, for one, I’m excited because I get to be part of something[…]but I’m also nervous–it’s the nervousness that comes with any competition, especially as my first time experiencing how it all goes down.”
Reflecting on the conference, Luke Baeckelandt, Model UN president, felt that the conference was an important learning experience for the first-time delegates.
“I think there was a sense of disappointment and a sense of regret, in a way,” Baeckelandt said. “We had brought our best and our brightest, and we expected to get more awards than Tim’s Outstanding Delegate Award, a.k.a. second place[…but] it’s about the group[…and] it’s because of the group moments…we had that made it an awesome experience.”
