Model UN

The Politics Department sponsors the Ithaca College Model UN, which competes every year in the fall at the Model UN Conference at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the spring at the Harvard National Model UN Conference.  As of the Fall of 2010, the team also attends the Security Council Simulation at Yale University.  Faculty advisor Juan Arroyo works with students to prepare for these conferences.

The college-level Model UN system is a simulation of the United Nations, first held at Harvard in 1955. The IC team was created in 1985. Each college is assigned a country to represent at the MUN. At the Univ. of Pennsylvania MUN conference in the Fall of 2010, IC represented Bosnia-Herzegovina and Togo. In the Spring of 2011, student represented Mexico at the Harvard conference. The delegates may participate in simulations of the large General Assembly committees, but also many smaller committees on dozens of possible issues.

Before the conferences, the team meets twice a week and sometimes on weekends. The delegates share information on our assigned member state, rehearse the introduction of position papers, practice writing draft resolutions, simulate committee meetings, and take votes.

The conference topics can include all kinds of things: UN reform, maritime piracy, birth control education, deforestation, responses to internal conflict, and much more. Our delegates do their own research to become familiar with the topics. More importantly, they have to learn how our assigned country is affected by that issue, and the position of that government in response.

Students take advantage of UN library materials, the collections of the IC and Cornell libraries, Ithaca College faculty, numerous on-line data-bases, and the press and foreign ministries. They find treaties, resolutions and protocols that have already been supported by our assigned country, and use this information to play their roles more effectively. The IC team looks for specialists or natives to provide some background on our country. In recent semesters we have heard from a Dane, a Thai, two Belgians, and a Bosnian.

At the conference itself, our students have to convince the delegates from other nations to support a resolution that is consistent with our country's positions, or block those that do not serve our interests. The debate is held in committee, moderated by the chairs. The process also includes un-moderated caucuses, during which smaller groups of delegates meet, bargain, argue, cajole and compromise (maybe) in order to get a satisfactory resolution.

Ithaca College students have been recognized for their performance at MUN conferences. At Penn in the Fall of 2009, Ann Strucke (2009) and Ranu Nath (2012) were recognized for their distinguished work in the Disarmament and Security Committee. At the Yale conference in the Fall of 2010, Cosmo Houck received an award for his work as "Mammon," on a committe simulating Milton's Paradise Lost.

We also try to immerse ourselves a little bit in the culture of our country, primarily through food! One semester a guest treated us to genuine Belgian waffles. We have also enjoyed Bosnian börek, Mexican enchiladas, churros, and more.

The MUN process is all about simulation and role-playing, but the learning, team-building and resulting friendships are very real.

by Juan Arroyo