Students Return to In-Person Model UN with KingMUN Conference

This past weekend, in addition to homecoming and the King Cares 5K, students participated in the 2021 King Model United Nations conference.

The Conference is a yearly event for the school where students gather to learn the basics of Model UN parliamentary procedure. The club has been a favorite academic extracurricular for many. Conferences are held across the world, with students from all over the world attending. Students participate in a simulation of a United Nations assembly and learn about international relations, diplomacy, structured debate, and leadership. Current world issues are debated, and together participants come up with solutions for the problems at hand while staying true to the country or position of the member they are assigned to represent. Delegates meticulously research the topics of their assigned committees, and they come to a solution that every member of the committee can uphold to solve the crisis at hand and maintain international peace, unity, and security.

The club is overseen by long-time advisor Mr Galanopoulos, who coordinates the logistics of the club, registers students for larger conferences, and has championed the beloved extracurricular since the club's founding.

KingMUN is entirely student run, with current club co-leaders Ellie Goudie, Emmi Freeman, and Billy Bernfeld formulating the committees, assigning positions, and writing background guides.

Committee chairs Dalton Aysseh, Ori Divon, Tucker Pedersen, Nii Adom Laryea-Adjei, Ellie Glinka, and Meredith Joo moderated debate along with the club leaders.

Both committees were crisis committees, in which the delegates have more action-making power than a traditional committee.

In one committee, each student was assigned to be a representative of a different country and was tasked with navigating the crisis in Afghanistan, as well as the additional crisis news that a member of their delegation had allied with ISIS-K. The other committee, assigned different positions in the National Security Council of Japan, worked together to keep the citizens of Tokyo safe after an explosion in Tokyo Bay, revealed to be Godzilla. Students worked together to craft working papers of solutions, which they then voted on to come to a resolution.

“I really enjoyed KingMun,” says Samuel Cohen, recipient of the Honorable Delegate award in the Afghanistan committee. “It was a great opportunity to improve.”

“Being part of the model UN club at King has been so helpful so far and interesting. I also got to meet a lot of students across the high school which was awesome!” remarks Olivia Asnes, recipient of the Honorable Delegate award in the National Security Council of Japan.

The best delegate and outstanding delegate awards for the Afghanistan committee respectively went to Nicole Barrera and Jaipal Dohil. For the National Security Council of Japan, they went to Griffen Gaine and Griffin Cho.

“We had a very lively and successful debate, with many rookies and our returning veterans who had fun while debating issues and solutions to their specific committees” says club co-leader Emmi Freeman.

With Model UN conferences with Brown University and Harvard University on the horizon, members of the club will soon be putting their debate skills to work deliberating world issues with students from around the world. Though Brown Model UN will be virtual, the Harvard conference will be in person, bringing back the traditional Model UN experience students love.