Ryan Boulanger, News Editor
Listen to an audio recording of the story here:
As the school year winds down, it’s natural to take a look back on all of our accomplishments. For the Model UN team, that means a year filled with successful conferences and a team that continues to compete at the highest level. On the surface, the club presents itself as an engaging, collaborative, and dynamic environment for quick-witted thinkers and speakers to rise to showcase their skills. But behind the fast, action-packed crisis rooms at conferences lies a network of students who support, lead, and fund the team.
The most notable role a team member can take on is that of a captain. One of this year’s three captains is senior Toby Woods. “One of the main things we do as captains is help teach the parliamentary process which is essentially the style of debate that is run,” Toby said. “We teach this to help our team members become better negotiators and public speakers over time.”
Model UN conferences operate under two different “rooms” of debate. “The first is what’s called a general assembly, which will have anywhere from 50 to 100 people in a room,” Toby said. “The structure of that is essentially everyone gives a set of speeches in which you represent a party, usually a country, and you work with others around you to come up with a resolution on the topic at hand.”
Team members also have the opportunity to compete in high-stakes situations known as crisis rooms. “The other type of room is called a crisis room, where usually you’re representing a certain individual in a historical or fictional situation,” Toby said. “Crisis rooms are fluid and dynamic, and you have to work to better your own character’s stance.”
The club has opened up other unique opportunities for its members, including the UNIS conference held at the UN assembly in New York. “The UNIS conference is a little bit different from normal conferences because it’s structured more like a real conference as opposed to Model UN,” Toby said. “We had a whole bunch of keynote speakers, including members of the real assembly, and leaders from important organizations such as UNESCO. One of the cool things about UNIS was the fact that you’re in the UN building, which is this hugely influential building in which almost every major political leader since the 1950s has spoken.”
The team also got to travel to the Netherlands this year for THIMUN, a highly-exclusive international conference. “THIMUN is one of the international conferences that we get invited to every year,” Toby said. “We are the only public high school in America that gets invited to that conference, aside from a select group of private schools. The people you meet at the conference are from all different areas of the world, with vastly different experiences and perspectives, which makes you realize that we live in a bubble in New Canaan.”
To attend and compete at these unique opportunities around the world the club uses a dedicated fundraising team, with leaders such as sophomore Rohan Shenoy paving the way for less experienced members. “One example of how we raise money is by selling our booster cards, which are filled with discounts at different businesses in the local area,” Rohan said. “What I’ve been doing the last couple of months is going to businesses to find what discounts they’d be willing to offer so I can put those on our booster cards to sell,” Rohan said.
Many others are hard at work behind the scenes. “There are two fundraising coordinators, myself and junior Daniel Ristic,” Rohan said. “There are also other positions on the team, such as the technology coordinator, the social events coordinator, as well as a middle school liaison coordinator.”
Traveling to conferences brings a host of different memorable experiences. “When I went to the Georgetown conference, I had the opportunity to meet kids from all sorts of states, we had kids from California, Georgia, and even North Dakota,” Rohan said. “When you’re in a room with almost 100 kids from many different states all with different perspectives it helps improve your collaborative skills. It also helps you work on building new relationships and friendships, and I still have contacts from kids at these conferences. It’s a cool experience.”
Many members of the team have been involved with Model UN since the start of middle school. “I got into Model UN when I was in fifth grade. I wanted to try something new in my first year in middle school, and it was a really popular club at the time.” Rohan said. “I remember I enjoyed doing research papers about different countries, which is what we started with initially. I love debating and communicating with other people, which kickstarted my participation in Model UN.”
The style of debate that is run is designed to create confident and intelligent speakers. “Looking back on the person that I was at the beginning of high school, Model UN has helped me to become a better communicator, and gain a sense of confidence that will serve me well in my future,” Toby said.
Model UN has fostered a multitude of skill sets for its members, setting many of them up for successful futures outside of just the area of diplomacy. “When some people think of Model UN, I imagine they think of it as a vocational club for people who want to become diplomats in the future,” Toby said. “The core of the club is teaching you these foundational skills which you are going to apply in all aspects of your life, regardless of what job you have in the future.”
