By Elena Girardi

It’s 8:30 on a Sunday morning, and nine finely dressed University students gather outside the Student Center. After months of hard work and research, the time has come for these students to venture to New York City to participate in the International Model United Nations.

Though Model U.N. has been around for over one hundred years, this competition was a first for the University. After jumping on the U.N. bandwagon just before winter break, the University became the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and took a seat in the convention.

Model UN is designed to model the actual workings and procedures of the United Nations. Schools are assigned a country and given an agenda to work on. The teams are broken up into committees who focus on issues such as human rights, world trade, international commerce and security-related issues. Students then address the most pressing issues in those areas and draft resolutions to fix them. As the students would soon discover, a sharing of ideologies from across the globe can provide for very interesting and heated discussions.

The first day was spent traveling, waiting for room keys, registering forms and going over procedural elements. The site of the event was the 53rd Street Sheraton, where the lobby was bustling with business-clad students hunched over laptops, all speaking hurriedly in a myriad of languages.

Day two was split into two sections, where various committees voted on agendas, argued over procedures and began to draft resolutions. Each member state had interesting views and takes on various issues, and it was fascinating to be part of such a large network of ideas.

In the evening, a welcome ceremony was held at the actual U.N. headquarters in New York City. The Security General of Japan welcomed the students and expressed his enthusiasm at the participation of young people in politics.

By the third day, it was full speed ahead. Working papers were flying hot off the press, and loose ends were coming together. Alliances were defined, and the bonds and friendships formed over the past few days were quite evident. University freshman Adam Dadson said, “I like how it brought kids from all over the world together to work on a common goal.”

Come day four, the resolutions were in their final stages while students hurried to make their final tweaks and revisions before producing a final product. Christian Perez, a freshman and co-founder of the University’s Model U.N. club recalls his experience. “I was part of the E.U. team who was charged with amending the developing countries’ resolutions. I had to run around finding signatories for amendments and convince those people the importance of incorporating these amendments.”

On the last day of the competition, the delegates headed back to the United Nations Headquarters to vote on the final resolutions from the General Assembly and listen to a report on the special committee. Then there was a closing ceremony as well as the announcement of the top schools. Though the University was not amongst them, the opportunity to participate in such an iconic event was invaluable.

The University team looks forward to taking the experiences and knowledge gained from this competition and will use it to prepare for future years.