NYUMUNC did a great job managing a 10-way crisis
Some conferences do two joint crisis cabinets and it’s challenging enough to pull off. The New York University Model United Nations Conference (NYUMUNC) does ten joint crisis cabinets — they are all interconnected regionally with this year’s focus being South Asia. This new breed of fully-connected and concurrent crisis conferences includes Princeton PICSim, Duke DISCon, and West Point WPSC, but NYUMUNC kicks the complexity up one notch: they have no predetermined crisis tree nor thematic tension. For those who analyze crisis committees, this concept is on the opposite spectrum of ChoMUN’s deliberately crafted crisis trees and similar to what Georgetown refers to as “Morshed’s mantra” — allowing the chaotic nature of crisis to determine the actions of a crisis staff that starts off as tabula rasa. It makes sense though; no one can predict or map out how ten committees and each of its cabinet ministers will interact with each other.
NYUMUNC does an excellent job at preparing itself to manage a ten-way joint crisis. The conference has a 2:1 delegate-to-staff ratio with all the crisis staffers divided into pods and coordinating from one central command. Customized software allows all committees to simultaneously see conference-wide BBC updates and specific committees to see cabinet-relevant updates; the crisis staff sees all of it. An advanced Google Docs spreadsheet that’s shared with all staffers tracks all private meetings and negotiation results between members from different cabinets. Communication is instantaneous as all directives and notes are done through Gchat and documented on Google Docs; the conference is paperless. Projections are overlaid on whiteboards to make it easy to mark-up troop movements on a map. Free Red Bull was given to keep delegates energized. All this lead to an improved crisis experience, and NYUMUNC plans to spend the next few years perfecting it. Finally, my favorite part as a blogger? Their conference takes better photos than I do (links below)!
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This weekend we featured one high school conference –Seton Hall’s SHUMUN where Best Delegate’s Ryan Villanueva spoke at Opening Ceremonies – and three college conferences on a very busy weekend for the college circuit: Five College MUN at Mt. Holyoke, West Point’s WPSC, and NYU’s NYUMUNC. We also have results from Virginia VICS. There are plenty of stories and photos from over the weekend – check it out!
Seton Hall University Model United Nations (SHUMUN)
Five College Model United Nations (FCMUN) – hosted at Mt. Holyoke College
West Point Security Conference (WPSC)
New York University Model United Nations Conference (NYCMUNC)
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Virginia International Crisis Simulation (VICS) – University of Virginia
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NYUMUNC gained momentum in the second session as crisis events rolled so fast that each committee had to refresh their online external news feed by the minute and debate on new crisis problems. “The pace of this crisis is overwhelming. Every second we’re bombarded with a newly raised problem,” one delegate said. “The way Crisis is managing this is incredible,” commented another.
The influx of notes into and out of committees to each other and to crisis reached an unimaginable point as eventually a civil War broke within Nigeria and the world moved speedily to find out more about it. The founding of the Nigerian Rebels group, American stake in oil supply in the region, and diplomatic tension between the major world powers defined the major opinion cleavages.
At the end of the third session, the US National Security Council and US Executive Office of the President met in an emergency meeting by call of President Obama. Committees will meet tomorrow to play out the fate of this crisis.
The Second annual New York University Model United Nations Conference (NYUMUNC) opened today with – delegates and 15 different schools represented in the heart of downtown Manhattan. NYUMUNC, the multi-committee crisis simulation conference, prides itself for its complex crisis administration in operating all nine committees simultaneously by the same “conference world” timeline. Thus, when one committee announces a press release or takes military action, other committees are usually aware and can immediately produce a response in real time.
This year’s crisis is centered on the instability and political crisis in Nigeria. We look forward to seeing productive and much heated debate throughout the following days.
The Committees:
- The Federal Republic of Nigeria
- The Republic of Niger
- The Nigerian Rebels
- African Union Specialized Technical Committee
- US National Security Council
- US Executive Office of the President
- People’s Republic of China
- Russian Federation
- Nigerian Rebel Cabinet
