Model UN recently completed their trip to VAMUN. VAMUN is a Model United Nations Conference hosted by the University of Virginia. Colonel Brown, the Model UN sponsor, was very excited to expose new and old members of the club to this useful and important opportunity.
The VAMUN conference is based on the real United Nations. Not very many outside organizations offer this kind of environment, so the Model UN club is a unique opportunity for students to participate in.
“The United Nations [is] the model [we follow]. Students will represent a country or position and they’ll go and argue from that point of view,” Brown said. “What’s kind of deficient here in Kentucky is no one really does conferences [except for] KYA and KUNA. So, these conferences are focused on international bodies. Other students attend, not just from Kentucky but [from all over the world].”
Model UN tries to teach members necessary skills to succeed in leadership positions through these opportunities.
“We try to develop critical skills that can be transferable to anything a student does,” Brown said. “A big thing is developing and delivering speeches at whim on an issue of concern. That’s an essential skill. The other thing is everyone is tied into building research papers. We teach kids how to research based upon past practice. [Speech and debate is also] one of the critical skills that we need to develop.”
One of the most important parts of model UN is leadership opportunities. Students are put in different positions of power depending on the students skills and seniority.
“Our primary student leader is the secretary general or the president and then we have sub committees,” Brown said.“The way we run our meetings is we delegate authority through various positions in the club. We meet in this room every Thursday for an hour and we develop all of these skill sets.”
At the VAMUN conference, four of the students who were given these leadership positions won various different awards. Billie Phemister won the Verbal Communication award, Liam Gaddis and Winston Fugate won the Honorable Delegate award, and Madeline Rugg won the Outstanding Delegate award.
Model UN participated not only in the VAMUN conference, but many informational tours as well. The club visited the Home of President George Washington, the home of President Thomas Jefferson, and many other Museums relating to the club. The four awards and the experience earned by students made the club consider this trip a success. The Model UN club did an excellent job representing HC at Vamun.
