MUN students practice their speeches to their peers (Arteaga/LION).

Starting on Dec. 7, Model UN (MUN) will be staying in downtown Chicago for their international conference. Students will stay at the Fairmont Hotel overnight for four days and participate in debates. 

Several schools from other states will be represented there to compete against each other.

The students are given a role, whether it’s a country or political figure, prior to the conference MUN advisor Kathryn Pieper said. 

“They research and gather information about their assigned topic,” Pieper said. “They are then spending the four days working through problem and solution cycles with pre-determined problems brought by the conference or even problems that come up in the moment.”

It’s like a marathon, MUN member Jack Hull said. In a typical conference, students debate for up to six hours. 

“At this conference, we do a four hour committee chunk,” Hull said. “We start Thursday night and then compete in the morning, afternoon and night. They really wear you out. But if you want to win at this conference, you need to be able to pace yourself and have determination.”

Committees consist of several delegates representing countries in order to address and solve problems presented to them, Hull said. Some committees focus on crises around the world, while others are more traditional, such as the General Assembly, which discuss development, peace, security, and international law. 

A lot of factors fall into preparing for it, Pieper said. The advisors and leaders train students on how to give speeches, research, and prepare them on how to work with other delegates. Upperclassmen and underclassmen work together to strengthen their stamina on all of those things. 

“As Secretary General, I am preparing the team by teaching people how to do MUN and be successful delegates,” secretary general Cali Hendricks said. “In order to do that, we do a lot of speaking practices in our weekly meetings, as well as going over some of the MUN vocabulary and procedure. Finally we also practice researching and thinking on the spot. Preparation for the upcoming conference is similar, but we also add on networking strategies for the conference.” 

One major aspect of this conference that separates it from other conferences is the potential to be woken up in the middle of the night, to solve pressing issues that need immediate attention, Hull said. A delegate would then have two hours to fix the issue with other delegates. The main idea is to work towards successful solutions, utilizing critical thinking. The point of this concept is to simulate a real crisis occurring in the hours of the night for certain parts of the world.

“Our goal for this conference is to have the students put together everything that they have learned so far this year,” Pieper said. “By doing this they will hopefully be able to create groups, or blocs, and lead those groups to agree on solutions they create. Also, to try to have as many kids win as possible.”

Stakes are high, and although some members are fairly new, the team is confident, Hull said. It is one of the major conference highlights of the year. After Chicago, there will be a few more large conferences such as MUMUN, hosted by University of Michigan Ann Arbor.