South’s Model United Nations (MUN) team will be attending their first travel conference of this year at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, VA, today, Nov. 14 until Nov. 16, senior Aleeza Khan, MUN President said.
MUN sponsors a select 20 students from all grade levels to attend the conference, Jesse Sisler, MUN Advisor and Instructional Aid for the Special Education Department, said. Following a guest speaker, members will be split into groups to compete against representatives from other schools, Sisler said.
The University of Virginia is known as a historic site because it was founded by Thomas Jefferson, according to The University of Virginia. While the conference offers a meaningful learning experience, it also provides some downtime for the members on the historic site, Sisler said.
“Being on a historic campus, [we will hopefully have] the opportunity to explore,” Sisler said. “It is a good bonding experience for the whole team.”
At the conference, students will debate various political topics while representing an assigned country, senior Siya Shah, MUN Co-Vice President, said. Students will be judged based on their debating skills, as well as their ability to work and create solutions with students representing similar issues, Shah added.
“The overall [goal is] to create a solution to help solve [a country’s] problems,” Shah said. “For example, if you’re combating drug trafficking in Nigeria, [you] work with other countries in the room to come up with solutions to deal with [that issue] and how we can be more aware of [the issue].”
Students work toward winning Honorable, Outstanding, and Best Delegate awards, Shah said.
With many talented schools competing, MUN hopes that this competition will help newer members perform better in the future, Sisler said.
“[The MUN Board] wants to make sure we bring a competitive team, so we look [at] who has won awards in the past,” Sisler said. “We also are bringing a couple of students this year who are newer to the team and who have shown their commitment level.”
