It’s Global Classrooms International MUN (GCIMUN) week! Best Delegate has many of its roots and best friendships tied to this conference — we hope to be able to highlight this excellent educational program and introduce the Global Classrooms mission to readers who are not yet familiar with it. Also, we had a big week in terms of valuable news and informative articles last week, so make sure to check the links near the end of this article to catch up!
Conference Preview
UNA-USA Global Classrooms International Model United Nations (GCIMUN)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and GCIMUN Secretary-General Hayes Brown at the 2010 conference
Global Classrooms is a program put on by the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) to bring the Model United Nations experience to inner-city youth around the world. Many of these inner-city school districts have adopted Global Classrooms as part of their curriculum and send their students to one of 24 local Global Classrooms conferences held around the world including some that are free for Global Classrooms schools.
The GCIMUN conference is the culmination of this program and draws over 2,400 delegates from Global Classrooms schools from around the world (with New York City public schools and Italian schools being very well-represented) as well as other teams that want an education-oriented conference. The conference is held in New York City and includes sessions at the United Nations. Ban Ki-moon has spoken live at Opening Ceremonies in the past three years and hopefully he’ll make this year his fourth. The Dalton School won Best Delegation last year.
The Secretary-General is Sam Lichtenstein from Johns Hopkins University (he also served as the Secretary-General of JHUMUNC). Director-General Nora Radtke (University of Chicago), Chief of Staff Jeniffer Kim (American University), and Chief of Operations Robert Townley (McGill University) help him lead a staff of over 100 college student-volunteers from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and beyond. Kelly Siegal and Andrew Roush are the lead event coordinators for UNA-USA.
We’ve previously featured Global Classrooms: Washington DC, Global Classrooms: New York, and Global Classrooms: Middle School on Best Delegate (and have a recap of Global Classrooms: Chicago below), but we’ll get a more in-depth look into the Global Classrooms mission and experience this weekend.
Other Conferences this week:
- Davis Model United Nations Conference (DMUNC) – UC Davis, Davis, California, USA
- J.P. Stevens High School Model United Nations (JPSMUN), Edison, New Jersey, USA
- Milan International Model United Nations (MILMUN), Milan, Italy — college
Conference Recap
Global Classrooms Chicago
The Global Classrooms Chicago conference featured seven committee total — four high school committees and three middle school committees. The high school Security Council was the first committee at GC Chicago to ever incorporate crisis elements, and that effort was lead by the University of Chicago’s travel team head delegate, Sean Mirski. Over 300 delegates attended this year, all of whom came from Chicago Public Schools. The Secretary-General was Clara Spera from the University of Chicago.
The awards were:
- Secretary-General’s Award for High School: Lincoln Park High School
- Secretary-General’s Award for Middle School: Abraham Lincoln Elementary
Congratulations to all the delegates and staff!
Global Classrooms Washington DC
Best Delegate’s Ryan Villanueva liveblogged this conference — check out the conference feature here!
Community News
Best Delegate News
Last week was a big week in terms of articles and news — you can catch up here:
- A Tale of Two Circuits: 5 Key Differences Between the World Division and National Division, and What They Can Learn From Each Other
- Announcing the Launch of the 2011-12 Conference Database
- Top 12 Conference Scheduling and Market Trends
- Guest Post from the University of Bridgeport: Overcoming Adversity to Attend NMUN
- Breaking News: WorldMUN 2012 to be held in Vancouver!
- May Preview: GCIMUN, Rankings, End-of-Year Review, and Conference Database
- MUN Reflections on the Death of Osama bin Laden
Community News
