Despite the large number of clubs at Tower Hill school, very few are as active as one in particular. Led by senior William Miller, who you’ve probably seen announce awards for delegates won during morning meetings, Model UN is a club at Tower Hill that has some of the most involved members. Despite this, outside of the members of Model UN, most people don’t know what it really is. Sure, most are aware that it's a club where students represent countries, but not much beyond that. So, to remedy this fact and provide Model UN its much deserved attention, I interviewed one of the teacher sponsors, Mr. Brown, to get a better understanding of what this club does.
I asked Mr. Brown for a proper definition of Model UN, and he defined it as a “simulation where students get to present real countries and discuss important real life issues to try and create resolution on how to solve the problems the world is dealing with,” which is a bit of a mouth full, he knows.
Each school that participates in Model UN is considered a ‘chapter’, and depending on the size of your chapter your experience in the club can change. Tower Hill is a medium chapter, with 40 people on the roster but only about 15-20 going to every conference. Conferences are the different meetings that each school attends throughout the year, each one focusing on different issues or problems. This year, Mr. Brown says that the club is participating in four conferences, with maybe an extra one or two thrown in. He says the more time consuming conferences, like the 3 day conference in Washington DC which requires students to spend the night, attract fewer delegates, while the conference at Sallies attracts more.
To get a better understanding of just what happens in conferences, I asked Mr. Brown to give an example of what a normal day would look like while attending a conference. Before the conference even starts, students are required to submit a position paper, which, like it sounds, is a paper written outlining the country's position on the issue presented at the conference. Each conference starts with an opening ceremony, usually including some kind of keynote speaker. While allowed to present whatever they want, speakers tend to talk about international activities. Then, students break up into committee sessions.
Prior to the conference, students are assigned countries and committees they are a part of. The countries and committees often model the ones in the UN (haha, get it). They are also given the main issue the whole conference is about and given time to research their country’s beliefs to prepare to give speech to the rest of their committees. After these speeches, delegates are given a chance to have unmoderated caucuses, which are not formal speeches but instead chances for delegates to break out and try to find others with similar views to their country. Then, they try to create resolutions.
This can happen two ways: you can be a sponsor, someone who creates a resolution, or become a signatory, someone who doesn’t create a resolution but instead supports the resolution. Once a resolution is created, delegates vote on the resolutions to see which ones pass. After all of this, the conference ends with closing ceremonies and awards. Awards are by committee and chosen by a panel of judges, who decide who has the best skills in delegating and being a leader.
That all sounded like a lot, so I questioned Mr. Brown on how much teacher intervention and guidance is given to the students. While it depends on what school you go to, Mr. Brown said that “Tower Hill is particular [tries] to make it fairly student run. Teachers end up helping with logistics with travel (like registration, hotels, and payments) and providing guidance to students who are preparing position papers and have questions about the procedure.” The process is very student driven, but that being said, students aren’t completely thrown into the dark. There are training sessions but a lot of the time students have to reach out for help if they need it.
While position papers are the item that students ask the most questions on, they aren’t the only part of preparation for a conference. Students are given countries and issues beforehand and have opportunities to select ones that they think are interesting to them. Students are then responsible for doing their own research which then makes the basis for their position paper. Throughout the process, students are not providing their own opinions and arguments, but instead are taking legislation, programs and opinions from the country they represent to present. The time given to prepare can range from a few weeks to a couple of months, usually depending on how early the group can register for a conference. The expectation is not to become an expert on the issue but to do enough research so students can understand the basic principles of that country and how to make arguments and resolutions for them.
This is all a lot of work to do on top of school, so why participate? Well, for one thing students gain invaluable skills and information including but not limited to: learning how to write and pass resolutions, improving writing and research skills, learning about important international issues that affect our world, learning to talk to people that disagree with them and either compromising or possibly persuade them, learning public speaking skills. But that's not all, through this program students can gain a strong, friendly, community that they can learn from for years to come.
So, next time you see William Miller, Mr. Brown, or Dr. N at a morning meeting making an announcement about a recent Model UN conference, make sure to listen and acknowledge the amount of work and time that students put into this club.
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