This guest article series was written by Nickolas Harris, the Director and founder of the international MUN conference, the Global Education City Model United Nations (GECMUN) conference held on Jeju Island, South Korea. He is also the founder of the San Pedro Sula Conferences (SPSCON) in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He has been coaching MUN for eight years, with experience coaching delegates in the Middle East, Central America, and East Asia, and teaching a MUN elective course at Escuela Internacional Sampedrana and Korea International School, Jeju.
Miss the beginning of this series? Check out Part 1 and Part 2!
#3 Unclear Awards Criteria
At many conferences, the awards are based on a rather vague and open-ended awards criteria, and delegates often find it difficult to prepare, culminating in frustration when they feel that the results were not in their favor. Or conversely, they find themselves very surprised and perplexed when they win an award when they thought they did a poor job. The vagueness of awards criteria creates the following issues:
- Bias towards host schools and/or host schools’ friends. MUN is a truly unique system in regards to “winning” because the very people handing out the awards can be students of the same age, sometimes even from the same school. Therefore, it is essential that conferences provide a comprehensive guide for delegates which clearly explains the award system, and make sure that chairs are trained to be consistent with their evaluation methods. Without a transparent method, schools can get accused of being biased towards their own delegates. Unfortunately, in my career, I’ve witnessed at least a dozen times where there was some foul play by chairs, all of which could have been avoided by having a clear explanation of the awards process.
- Frustrated advisors and head delegates. MUN head delegates and advisors spend months helping their teams prepare for the conference, and can be frustrated if they do not have clarity and understanding of how to best prepare students if they are not given a specific set of categories and methodologies explaining awards.
THE SOLUTION
Create a comprehensive evaluation sheet that all chairs can use. By having a standardized evaluation sheet, the conference can avoid inconsistencies from committee to committee, and provide attending delegates with a mutual understanding of what is expected to win an award.
Example of a standardized evaluation sheet that could be used at a conference
Check back soon for the fourth and final part of this series, which will address issues with Opening and Closing Ceremonies!
