After fundraising for weeks, SMU’s Model United Nations team was able to make its way to Taiwan for their second attendance at the annual World Model UN Competition.
More than 2,000 students of major universities from more than 50 countries went to Taipei, Taiwan March 14-18. Taking on roles of different countries’ ambassadors, groups of students competed against one another to take home awards.
Nicola Muchnikoff, head delegate for Model UN and president of International Relations Council at SMU, won one of the two awards granted to the nine students from SMU.
What makes this an even bigger accomplishment, according to Muchnikoff, is that SMU is in an elite group for winning these awards. Schools that win are normally schools similar to Georgetown and Yale.
“What was great was that when we did win, on the screen, in front of 2,000 people, it said ‘SMU,'” Muchnikoff said.
During competition, groups would be formed and they took on the role of countries’ ambassadors: tackling their issues and foreign relations, as she explained. There are different committees for these, such as the international monetary committee or the historical committee.
Teams take two topics in the committees and Muchnikoff’s team was Armania, where there were four different organizations of the UN and five different committees. SMU took awards home in two of these.
“It was really great for SMU,” she said.
Not only was it an accomplishment for this campus, but it was great for the Eastern country.
“For Taiwan, it’s a huge deal,” Muchnikoff said. And it’s “a big political deal for China.”
She said it was great garnering political experience, but for the country hosting, “it was real politics.”
Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, personally wrote the World Model UN Delegates a letter congratulating them on competing and wishing them luck.
Model UN was “created with the goals of furthering understanding about the United Nations, educating participants about world issues, promoting peace and the United Nations through cooperation and diplomacy,” according to Muchnikoff.
Conferences, like SMU’s team just attended, provide the opportunity for students to debate the current issues that the United Nations are facing.
SMU’s Model UN program has been growing over the past few years. These students—from a variety of studies such as engineering, theatre, finance, international studies, and economics participate—in four competition each academic year.
“Our delegates have gained in size, experience, and reputation in recent years, and have consequently been invited to participate in several highly selective and prestigious conferences,” she said.
Harvard University hosts the World Model UN conference and SMU’s “invitation to this event represents several years of diligent work by SMU’s Model UN program,” Muchnikoff said.
While this is Muchnikoff’s second time to attend the competition, (which was in the Netherlands last year), it was an experience she won’t forget.
“An international forum like World Model UN with 2,000 future leaders from around the world coming together is rare,” she said.
“Can you imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr., Ban Ki Moon, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and Madeleine Albright had all come together in their early 20s to discuss international issues, world policy and to socialize?” she asked. “I imagine that the discussion would be similar to that which occurs at the World Model UN Conference.”
