Model United Nations (MUN) is a growing club at Park that takes place during the winter-spring season. In MUN, you get a country assignment and can speak with other delegates to help prosper your country. Park is participating in two conferences this year, one at Macalester College and another ran by the YMCA.
MUN advisor Julia Germain said the leadership team has played a significant role in making the turnaround from the Youth In Government conference in January efficient. She said the team has been getting more people to join MUN and have many people who are intent on joining.
“(Preparations) have been going pretty good. We have an awesome leadership team that is experienced, so it was a quick turnaround after YIG (Youth In Government),” Germain said. “Still, we got going right away with recruitment, and we have a solid group interested.”
Senior Arun Ferran-Sapatnekar said he joined MUN because the concept of the conference and discussing international affairs with different delegates interested him.
“I joined sophomore year. I don’t remember how I heard about it, but I joined it because it seemed interesting, and I like learning about different countries,” Ferran-Sapatnekar said. “I wanted to discuss them with other people.”
According to senior Alex Hoag, the larger leadership team for MUN is helpful for the abundance of new students who’ve joined the club.
“Preparations are running pretty smoothly so far. I’m president, and we have two chairs, a treasurer, a communications director and a social media manager who all work to make sure meeting dates are known to all students and important messages are being sent out,” Hoag said. “Our leadership team is quite big, but it’s beneficial because we have a lot of new students who have joined MUN so it’s great to have all the help.”
Germain said Park’s MUN and Youth In Government clubs have grown throughout the years. She said many students who join Youth In Government enjoy it and end up joining MUN too.
“I know the first year when it was starting, it was a bit smaller, and then just over the past couple of years, we’ve grown collectively through Youth In Gov and MUN,” Germain said. “There’s a lot of crossover of kids that do it, and it’s exciting because a lot of kids will do Youth In Gov the first time, and then they get a taste of that sort of environment. And then we’ve had a lot of kids this year that have expressed interest in MUN.”
Hoag said she is disappointed that she cannot participate in the YMCA conference due to a conflict with Park’s spring break. She said Park has provided an alternative conference at Macalester College that she will participate in.
“Spring break has gotten in the way for many students this year and last year. It’s sad because it’s my senior year and I would like to go to the YMCA MUN conference but am unable to because I will be out of town during those dates,” Hoag said. “Even though many may not be able to attend the YMCA conference, there is another one we are providing to students that is at Macalester College at the end of February.”
According to Ferran-Sapatnekar, to prepare for the conference he researches his assigned country and also looks into topics that are significant to his program area at the conference. He said participants haven’t received their country, so he hasn’t been able to start that research yet.
“We haven’t gotten our country assignments yet, so we haven’t started preparing,” Ferran-Sapatnekar said. “I’m sure that once we get the country assignments, I’ll be looking up my country to get background on it and then looking up information relevant to the specific area that I’m in.”
According to Germain, with the Macalester conference being so soon, the leadership team has stepped up and they are dedicated to helping the other students go into the conference prepared.
“(In the quick turnaround for Macalester) we have an awesome leadership team that is really experienced and on top of it, even though some of them haven’t done Macalester before,” Germain said. “We are motivated to make sure kids are prepared going into the conference.”
Ferran-Sapatnekar said that for people who are participating for the first time in MUN, it’s important to be able to speak in front of others. He said it can be nerve-wracking, but if you prepare enough and do enough research, it will be okay.
“Some advice (to people new in MUN) is to prepare speaking to people and to be in uncomfortable situations because it can be very difficult to go up in front of a bunch of people and start talking,” Ferran-Sapatnekar said. “But as long as you know what you’re talking about, you’ll be fine.”
According to Hoag, MUN helps her build relationships with delegates from other schools and it helps her stay up to date with current events that are happening globally.
“Every year I hope to gain relationships with other students from different schools and learn about the world around me,” Hoag said. “It’s important to keep up with what’s happening around the world and I find that MUN helps me do that.”
