The National Model United Nations (NMUN) New York conferences took place at the Sheraton and Marriott hotels this past week with over 5,000 college delegates attending — NMUN is the largest conference in the world and the only college conference with a session at the UN headquarters. Delegates spend months preparing for this conference and NMUN provides recognition to many delegations for their hard work.
NMUN gives out three levels of delegation awards: Outstanding, Distinguished, and Honorable Mention. But it is also important to note that the NMUN philosophy believes that participation in the simulation is its own reward. The fundamental basis of the simulation is collaboration and cooperation among nations, which includes working together through multilateral diplomacy. There are no winners and certainly no losers in this process.
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Delegates produce many draft resolutions at NMUN
The National Model United Nations (NMUN) is the world’s largest conference with over 5,000 delegates. It’s so big that it’s technically split into two conferences with two separate dates and hotel venues since no hotel can hold that many delegates. NMUN was not an official stop on our tour but I decided to drop by to say hi to friends and do some informal interviews since I happened to be in New York for a workshop. Unfortunately, I missed Universidad Central de Venezuela who was the first to ask us for an interview, but I did catch a few other delegates to get their insights about NMUN. For readers who are new to NMUN, read this circuit comparison article first.
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Only a few schools, such as FIU, attend conferences in both the World and National Divisions
The Best Delegate team has been visiting different Model UN conferences around the country all year and we’ve noticed that two different groups of schools attend college Model UN conferences.
One group mostly attends the conferences hosted by U.Penn, Georgetown, Yale, U.Chicago, and Berkeley, and this group views the Harvard National MUN Conference (HNMUN) as their “super bowl.” We call this group of schools and the conferences they attend the “World Division” circuit.
The other group mostly attends independently-organized conferences such as Model UN of the Far West and American Model UN, and they view the National MUN Conference (NMUN) as their big conference of the year. We call this the “National Division” circuit.
The two circuits are not mutually exclusive. Schools such as Florida International University and Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Venezuela attend both HNMUN and NMUN. Schools are free to register for conferences of either circuit (although the bigger conferences have waiting lists). Nonetheless, college Model UN in the United States has evolved into these two separate circuits.
What’s the difference between the two circuits? More importantly, is there something that they can learn from one another?
To answer these questions, I compared the Top 25 North American schools in the World Division and the 23 US-based schools that received Outstanding Delegation at NMUN. Combined with my observations from live blogging the World Division conferences and NMUN, I noticed 5 key differences.
Click “Learn More” below to find out what the 5 key differences are!
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Today’s guest post was written by Lincoln LaGrotteria, the Head Delegate of the University of Bridgeport delegation to NMUN. In this post, Lincoln shares his delegation’s story of how they overcame team drama and financial barriers in order to attend the National MUN Conference — and walk away with a delegation award.
The University of Bridgeport overcame team drama and financial barriers to represent Maldives at NMUN and receive a delegation award
The University of Bridgeport has enjoyed considerable success at National Model UN Conferences; winning an Outstanding Position Paper Award in 2006, an Honorable Mention Delegation Award in 2007 and two Distinguished Delegation Awards in 2010 (at the New York and Czech Republic conferences).
However, this year’s delegation was honored with both Distinguished Delegation and Outstanding Position Paper, surpassing all previous awards won by our school, even though we were hard pressed to train and prepare, and we had to overcome additional obstacles including internal re-structuring of club officers and activities, financial barriers that threatened our attendance, a shortened time of training, and a room-block situation that almost left us without a room in New York City.
Click “Learn More” below to read Lincoln’s story!
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