Best College Model UN Organizations (alphabetical order)
This award recognizes college MUN organizations, including clubs and umbrella organizations that have multiple MUN components such as hosting a high school and college conference, fielding a travel team, and having other projects. It is not meant to focus on travel teams, which is recognized through the College Rankings.
American University International Relations Society (AMIRS)
AMIRS has only existed in its current organizational form for just about a decade, yet has made several key achievements in its short time on the Model UN circuit. Not only has the AU Model United Nations Team steadily risen in collegiate MUN rankings, thanks to AMIRS generous funding in the absence of institutional support, but it has also founded two high school conferences that have persisted in spite of the ongoing pandemic. AMIRS educational high school conference, the Washington International Relations Conference (WIRC), quadrupled it’s registration at the height of the pandemic and utilized the new virtual format to reach more speakers. AmeriMUNC, the organization’s premiere conference, in only 9 years of existence, received its best feedback to date for AmeriMUNC IX, which took place this January.
College of William and Mary International Relations Club
The College of William and Mary hosts 3 conferences: both middle, high, and collegiate-level conferences that aim to involve students from any background and skill to participate in Model UN and advance their debate and diplomacy skills. William and Mary is special in that it values diplomacy and inclusivity over all – to give everyone a chance to speak and get their foot into the debate community. Since its travel team is not a “try-out” team, the Head Del made sure to be as inclusive as possible during his tenure and trained any interested delegates with the resources that he was allotted, and passed on any traditions/knowledge/advice from previous teams to the future of our club. An interdisciplinary Head Del like him definitely deserves a gold star, a cookie, and an acknowledgment from Best Delegate!
Georgetown International Relations Association
This year, GIRA had to undertake the monumental task of returning all of its programming to in-person, and the organization truly excelled. With NCSC XLIX being the first NCSC to be in the Washington Hilton and to be ranked the #1 fall conference, and NAIMUN LIX coming back in person and welcoming thousands of delegates without a hitch, GIRA has demonstrated once again what it means to advance youth education in international affairs through renewed domestic and global programming, such as the first ever Global Future Shapers Challenge.
Harvard International Relations Council
The Harvard IRC successfully returned to host two in-person conferences of the highest caliber (HMUN and HNMUN), multiple online international conferences, successfully revived its travel team from #22 to a serious contender for top 5, all while transitioning back to in-person campus life with a thriving social community.
Hopkins Model UN (HopMUN)
This organization is awarded for its perseverance. The school would not allow any travel in the fall which would require overnight travel. The team prevailed by traveling every single day through an hour public transport commute to NCSC, the only conference it could go to. It then continually competed as much as they could in the spring. This team has gone through thick and thin traveling and hosting campus wide conferences.
Model United Nations at UCLA
Model United Nations at UCLA has proven itself to be a significant contributor and organization. Whether hosting BruinMUN for high school delegates or LAMUN for college delegates, MUN at UCLA is committed to ensuring a smooth, equitable, and enjoyable MUN experience for all. Moreover, the delegates that compose their dynamic travel team are always a pleasure to work with in committee, prioritizing collaboration and support for their fellow delegates, regardless of where they come from.
University of Southern California Model United Nations
USC hosts TrojanMUN for college students, and SCMUN for high schoolers. They field a competitive travel team, and their travel delegates are not only competent, but pleasures to work with. TrojanMUN was an extremely well-executed conference, where the Secretariat and staff consistently prioritized delegate safety and equity. Their club leadership has, on numerous occasions, helped fill in institutional knowledge that our organization was missing due to COVID or lapsed operations.
A delegate remarked: I have competed with delegates from across the country, and many other teams are quite cut-throat, toxic, and competitive. I think what sets MUNSC apart is its culture that is rooted in both competitive success but also a community that values well-being, diversity, and friendliness. They have always been helpful, professional, and generally all-around nice people!
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Best College Model UN Leaders (alphabetical order)
This award recognizes College Model UN leaders who contributed significantly to their Model UN conference, club, or team, and has not yet been recognized as a College MUN All-Star.
Arpit Bhate, Harvard University
Arpit has successfully led the Harvard Team to three back-to-back delegation awards. Arpit’s deep passion for Model UN and compassion for those around him shines through in everything he does, particularly as he welcomes and trains the team’s novices.
Fiona Hellerman, Tulane University
Fiona has been involved with Model UN for the past eight years. At Tulane, she served in leadership for 3.5 years, was president, and brought our team back into the circuit after almost two years; she took a service class in 2019 to start a MUN team at a local girls’ school, chosen specifically to teach young women the same way female mentors inspired her. Fiona lives, breathes, and eats Model UN and has single handedly revitalized MUN at Tulane– she is nothing if not the most passionate leader of a club like this.
Jack Tapay-Cueva, American University
Aside from being one of the strongest delegates on our team, Jack is consistently there for other team members to make sure they perform their best in committee. Weekends and week days, Jack would have office hours with delegates to provide critical guidance that would enhance conference performance, with plenty receiving awards due to his help. Even when not competing, Jack was on calls with team members, walking them through how to overcome committee obstacles.
Niklas Bergman, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Nik has been invaluable as head delegate for UTK. Nik has done nothing but an amazing job at leading and uplifting a competitive spirit within our travel team. He hosts weekly practices so we can work on crisis notes, directive writing, parli pro, etc. Additionally, under his leadership, UTK has performed demonstrably better than past years and won awards in numbers the club has never seen before, reaching the Best Delegate top 25 rankings for the Fall semester.
Noah Kim, United States Military Academy at West Point
Since March 2020, the USMA MUN team was defunct. No competitions, no practices, nothing. However, this year, Noah Kim pulled together as many former members as he could and brought along new members to rebuild the team. It was no small feat to get the team together again, but to push the team to award as high as outstanding delegation at HNMUN? Yet his ability to push the team to success wasn’t the highlight of his leadership. His highlight was that he was invested in his team beyond MUN. He cared about what was going on in their personal lives.
Sarah Dowless, College of William & Mary
Sarah Dowless is one the best Secretaries-General on the college conference circuit. She helped guide &MUN through a challenging expansion and improvement of delegate experience while acting as a model of leadership for our secretariat, our International Relations Club, and the William & Mary campus as a whole. Sarah consistently leverages her strong Model UN knowledge, inclusive leadership abilities, and caring friendship style to execute her Secretary-General duties and reignite people’s passion for diplomacy.
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Best College Model UN Project or Initiative (alphabetical order)
MyMUN (nominated by Claremont McKenna College)
From highlighting international celebrations to featuring global conferences to sharing succinct tips for MUN, MyMUN is an organization that is expanding the scope of its reach into a global audience. MyMUN’s website interface offers tools for conference organizers and participants alike, connecting people interested in MUN with opportunities to compete, chair, observe, and advance the activity of MUN.
Service at the College of William & Mary – benefiting Tbilisi Pride and Ukrainian refugees
At W&M, members of the club vote on an international charity to focus on yearly send over all Service proceeds earned during at-home MUN conferences towards that specific organization. This year, they supported Tbilisi Pride. After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the Chair took additional action by proclaiming that the Service will be matching all donations made to 3 vital organizations involved in supporting Ukrainian refugees.
Virginia Intergenerational Model United Nations
VIGMUN is an intergenerational conference run by the UVA Model UN team and its umbrella organization. It offers the chance for community members of all ages to become engaged in Model UN and with the university students. This program shows a unique capacity for Model UN in fostering community, and for the capacity of Model UN teams to give back to their communities.
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Best University Administrative Support (alphabetical order)
Claremont McKenna College: President, Administration, and Dean of Students
Claremont McKenna College is the definition of support, serving as a vital pillar that sustains the CMCMUN team. The team is lucky to receive institutional funding for all team members to attend at least 2 conferences a semester. When it came to Covid-19, their Dean of Students supported the team with robust contingency plans in case of any positive cases. With this unconditional support from the administration, they have MUN accessible to any student at CMC and allows for MUN to be an activity where everyone can grow and succeed with equal opportunity.
Karen Pryor, University of Chicago MUN Advisor
Karen is a woman who never rests until she has made sure that everyone else is not only OK, but is thriving. As the Advisor tasked with helping the team go back to competing in-person, she was thrown many challenges such as creating new procedures for what to do if delegates got trapped outside of Chicago. Notably, when the Team had struggles with its rental car on the way to &MUN she was a calm figure in defusing the situation and made sure the team arrived in Williamsburg in one piece. Karen is truly the epitome of leadership most of all because of how she inspires each of us to be leaders.
