Model UN students win "Best Overall Delegation" award
Students in the Model United Nations course, recently won an award for "Best Overall Delegation" at their annual nationwide conference.
The American Model United Nations Conference is normally held in Chicago, but was held online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite the challenge of the new online format, the Central Michigan University students who were assigned to represent a delegation from the People's Republic of China won an award for "Best Overall Delegation."
David Jesuit, chairperson for the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, said that students this year really rose to the challenge.
Jesuit said that the class teaches students about parliamentary procedure, debating skills, negotiation skills, and writing resolutions.
"I like to tell students it's about the art of diplomacy or the practice of politics," he said.
"I didn't really know what to expect," Jesuit said. I've done this; training students for the actual live conference. How the live conference goes, I generally know what to expect by now."
Overall, he said that the conference went much better than he expected.
"I was very concerned that the simulation wouldn't have the same kind of impact that I've seen it have on students," Jesuit said. "Because it's very intensive. It's a real time commitment for that period of the simulation over several days."
The conference was held over a period of four days, from October 22 to October 25.
"I'm just so proud of them," Jesuit said. "I think that the award reflects the amount of work the students put in largely."
Emilee Madison, a graduate assistant for the class, echoed Jesuit's pride in the students.
Madison took the class for four semesters when she did her undergraduate here at CMU. She said that this year was definitely a year unlike another.
"Usually they have it at the exact time every single year, which is the week before Thanksgiving," Madison said. "They moved it to mid-October, and it took away pretty much a month of our preparing time."
Madison said that another one of the challenges the students faced was that with it being online, was having only one student per committee.
Madison said that even though only one of the delegations won an award, she felt that the award really belonged to the whole class.
"The entire class put effort towards China winning that award," Madison said.
This is the second time CMU has won an award for Model UN, and the first time it has won an award with a class of all new students.
Hamilton sophomore Olivia Schwartz was the head of the China delegation.
Since it was her first year in the class, she said it was a challenge, because neither she nor the head delegate for the Kuwait delegation really knew how the conference worked.
"Returning delegates are usually super important leaders for their delegation," she said.
Schwartz said that they weren't expecting to win any awards, especially after no one won any individual awards.
"We were just tuning out for the most part and then all of the sudden it's like 'Central Michigan University,'" Schwartz said. "We were freaking out; it was super exciting."
