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Wesleyan Model UN Team: advancing the future of women's leadership on a global scale
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The Wesleyan College Model United Nations (WCMUN) team was selected to represent the nations of Namibia and Sierra Leone at the prestigious Harvard National Model United Nations conference held in Boston, Massachusetts February 14-17, 2008. As a result of several donations and fundraisers the women conducted themselves, twenty-three students were able to attend.
The international conference, which each year draws over 2,600 students and faculty members from universities in 30 different countries conference, is staffed entirely by Harvard University students. It is an opportunity for students to experience firsthand the challenges of international negotiation and diplomacy, to develop a greater understanding of world politics, and to share their experiences and opinions with students from all around the world.
WCMUN Co-Chair Melissa Ward said, “These conferences are held mainly to educate students on the process of how the United Nations works. There are various awards given to delegations for debating and passing resolutions, but these are not the main goals of the conference.”
At the conference, collegiate teams represent a member nation of the U.N., and must prepare position papers outlining “their” country’s position on major foreign policy issues. Each student represents a point of view from a particular country and seeks to have the committee assembly listen to their country's interests and preferences. The goal is to pass a resolution in order to solve the problem presented to the committee regarding a particular topic. This year, because the Wesleyan team was one of the largest at the conference, they divided into two teams and represented two countries. During the course of the conference, participants experience the obstacles that real-world leaders face as they debate issues concerning global security, poverty, healthcare and education.
Wesleyan’s 2008 Model United Nations Team is the largest in the history of the WCMUN Club, with an impressive 26 members. Since 2006, the team has grown more than four times in size to its current number. Wesleyan’s Model UN is not exclusively for political science or international relations majors, but includes students from areas such as: Education, Chemistry, Environmental Science, English, Studio Art, Economics, Math, and Religious Studies. The WCMUN team is ethnically diverse, with members from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, South Korea, America, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and China. For the first time, Wesleyan will have a nontraditional student participating in February’s Harvard Conference.
According to Wesleyanne Rudo Mudiwa, Model UN Co-Chair, “The 2008 year marked a big shift for the Wesleyan Model UN Club. Our phenomenal growth in size allows us to develop into a more competitive and reputable team. For many teams, Harvard’s Model UN Conference is the capstone of a year full of other conferences, and a lot of schools offer Model U.N. as a class. In contrast, we only attend one conference and exist as a club run entirely by students.”
Attending the Harvard Model United Nations conference allowed Wesleyan women the opportunity to dive into the world of international diplomacy and to stretch out of their comfort zones in public debate and analytical thinking. Most importantly, attending this conference allowed students to challenge the paradigm of women's leadership.
”I was a delegate for Sierra Leone on the Special Political and Decolonization Committee,” said Rudo, “and the topic we addressed was African Terrorism. The actual U.N. simulation itself was pretty accurate, and the biggest thing that I took away from it was just how complex and frustrating it can be. Over the course of the weekend, I realized why the work the U.N. does is so important and also incredibly difficult. The U.N. has the responsibility of promoting peace and self-determination in the world, and it’s really quite impressive to think about how much it has accomplished considering the obstacles.”
“My partner, Cindy Tran, and I spoke several times,” continued Rudo, “and even though the resolution we wanted failed, we were still happy because we saw that our comments influenced the eventual content of the resolution. People listened to our criticisms and made changes to their drafts. I really enjoyed speaking in front of a crowd of about a 100 other students. It is affirming to know that I could comfortably articulate criticisms and thoughts on such complex issues. The weekend was just amazing, because I got to be around some of the smartest college students in the world who are interested in many of the same issues that I am.”
The Wesleyan team, run entirely by students, is currently in the process of making plans to attend the Harvard Conference again next year, and hopes to attend at least one of the conferences held in Georgia in the fall. According to Melissa Ward, the local conferences will give newcomers the opportunity to see what a Model UN conference is like and learn how to perform the various tasks involved in being delegate.
Melissa said, “We are excited about planning for the next event. We see this type of competition as a way to advance the future of women's leadership on a global scale. Before coming to Wesleyan, I never thought I would have attended this type of conference or that this was even an available possibility for women. I think that Model UN has the potential to thrive, and develop young women leaders and that Wesleyan is the perfect environment for this development.”
In order to be competitive for the Harvard conference, the students added a rigorous practice schedule and enlisted the help of Wesleyan’s faculty. Three members of Wesleyan’s faculty were on hand before the conference to intermittently instruct the students in the structures and inner workings of the U.N., as well as prepare them to speak publicly in front of a large audience. Dr. Karen Huber, Assistant Professor of History, traveled with the team to Boston. Dr. Barbara Donovan, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations, and Dr. Deidre Donmoyer, Assistant Professor of Communication, played an essential role in preparing the students.
“It was great to see that Wesleyan women are not wallflowers,” Rudo said. “We can be surrounded by the best and brightest and still hold our own. The faculty and many others at Wesleyan have been so helpful. We’re already preparing for next year, and expect to have an even bigger team.”
“We hoped to establish our reputation as a formidable team during 2008,” said Mudiwa. “We will be attending more conferences in the future and would welcome another growth in size. We would like to see our prestige grow such that the club becomes an arm of the Political Science department and a recruiting tool for the College. There is already talk among members about the possibility of hosting a Women’s Model U.N. Conference at Wesleyan next year with teams from Agnes Scott, Salem, and other regional women’s colleges. In short, we’re dreaming really big and have a dedicated, creative and energetic team. The Club and its members embody Wesleyan’s mission to create women leaders and advocates, and our experience at the Conference promises to not only be personally enriching, but beneficial to the whole campus as well.”
2008 Wesleyan College Model United Nations Delegation:
Co-Chairs Missy Ward and Rudo Mudiwa, Cecelia Batt, Kellie Caulie, Alicia Downs, Hee Jung Eoh, Rachel Fullerton, Emily Gross, Abigail Julian, Chrystal Kim, Da Yeh Kim, Avantika Kulkarni, Hay-Rim Lee, Guanrong Li, Mengqiao Liu, Najwa Mohammed, Ankit Poktrel, Woo Ree, Seung-yeon Roh, Mona Shrestha, Caroline Smith, Kritika Thapa, Cindy Tran.
February, 2008 |
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