Features
Model UN: a model of success
By Michelle Chung ’20
November 3, 2016
Tags features
This past weekend consisted of dozens of placards, gavels, business suits and dresses as 13 Hamilton students attended the Model African Union Conference Oct. 21-23 at Colgate University. This three-day conversation sparked debate from students across the New York 6 schools, including Colgate, Hobart and William Smith, St. Lawrence, Swarthmore and Union. Led by advisor Kira Jumet, Assistant Professor of Government, and President Daniel Berrick ’18, the team managed to win 10 out of 18 total awards and received great recognition for their outstanding performances.
Berrick has been a part of Model UN since his junior year of high school and since his sophomore year at Hamilton. He explains that he’s always been drawn to the experiences and opportunities the club gives for participants to become successful speakers and thinkers. “It’s a club that allows you to develop your oratory skills, your analytical skills and your writing skills. But most importantly, it’s a club which requires you to be able to think on your feet if you want to succeed.”
Despite the fact that the team is composed primarily of first-years and sophomores, Berrick has been extremely impressed with the caliber with which his team has been working, especially when it comes to cooperating with one another.
“One of their strengths is their ability to cooperate with one another, which in the world of Model UN is very rare among delegates. Two delegates in particular, Claire Moutafian ’20 and AlMahdi Mahil ’20 both served in the same committee on Peace and Security,” commented Berrick.
“What really allowed them to succeed wasn’t just their knowledge on the committee topics and their general ability to speak well, but the fact that even though they represented different countries, they were able to bounce off each other and form a coalition that way. The dynamic that they created by cooperating with one another really gave them an edge in the committee and people just rallied around them.”
In fact, Moutafian and Mahil were two of five delegates who managed to win two awards each. The other students recognized included Cesar Guerrero ’20, Edsel Llaurador ’19 and David Rayudu ’19.
The team also won five committee leader awards (as voted by the chairs at the conference), five outstanding delegate awards (as voted by fellow delegates) and had notable performances from Emma Tynan ’20, Luis Morales ’20, Andrew Wei ’20 and Astor Chen ’20.
Mahil, who had no prior Model UN or debating experience, thoroughly enjoyed debating and realized its importance to real-world application. He mentioned, “You get the feel of what it is like to have a real political experience and how hard it must be for the real committees that do this work in the outside world.”
For Mahil, being able to work with other members who specialize in such different areas of debate is what definitely helps the team cooperate and become a debating powerhouse.
Despite the fact that the team has received so much praise for their work, Berrick only hopes to see improvement in future conferences. The conference will be at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What I really hope that my delegates will achieve is not only mastering the raw speaking, writing and analytical skills, but that they really will have an invested interest in learning about the issues they are debating. There are so many delegates who don’t really master the information they are supposed to be debating, and the substance in those arguments are really lacking,” Berrick explained.
“What my delegates are trying to do with the structure of their teams in either travel teams or research teams is that we can send our delegates to conferences, and they will be incredibly knowledgeable about the issues they are speaking about.”