With the surge of high school juniors and seniors, one might think it is a holiday weekend full of families touring campus. In fact, the 400 high school students crowding Dartmouth’s campus over the next few days are part of the 11th Dartmouth Model United Nations Conference. The conference, planned entirely by Dartmouth students, will last from today through Sunday afternoon.
Students will participate in one of 13 committees, ranging from five conventional General Assembly committees — which operate following the protocols and procedures of the corresponding United Nations body — to crisis committees, historical committees, special committees and an ad-hoc committee.
Dartmouth students who act as committee directors are given creative discretion in terms of creating their topics and scenarios, DartMUN secretary-general Andrew Wolff ’18 said.
Committees are not completely based on U.N. bodies, granting students more flexibility and the opportunity for a bit more fun, said Emily Choate ’18, undersecretary general of special committees.
“We put a lot of effort this year into coming up with really unique, novel topics,” Choate said.
This year, DartMUN leaders have placed particular emphasis on committee preparedness. Choate said that committee directors must be able to follow procedure, command authority and lead confidently.
The General Assembly committees this year will deal with five different topics, including nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and a futuristic scenario regarding the militarization of outer space, Wolff said. Crisis committees will handle both current and historical topics, such as the massacre at the 1980 Munich Olympics, he added.
Throughout the conference, crisis committees will be presented with new information as mock breaking-news articles are flashed onto the projector screen, Choate said. These committees present neat problem-solving exercises, as delegates are tasked with balancing rapid-fire situations while continuing with their central topic of debate, she said.
“I find that crises are probably the most fun because they are the least structured and can have the most happen,” director-general Alison Clarke ’18 said. “You can send things up on the spot that you think will solve the problem.”
This year’s three special committees are the Yalta Conference, a NATO committee and a committee devoted to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
The ad-hoc committee is less related to Model U.N., but still functions under the umbrella of parliamentary debate, Wolff said. Delegates assigned to the ad-hoc committee are given limited information in advance of the conference. For example, last year, the ad-hoc committee was modeled after the Procter & Gamble Co. executive board, he said. This year’s ad-hoc committee is structured as a NFL owners’ meeting, Wolff said.
“I like this type of committee because I think that the topics that you can do in Model U.N. can be pretty dry,” he said. “[Here] you get to deal with cool topics, and you get to pretend to be the owner of an NFL team for a few days.”
An opening ceremony in Alumni Hall Friday afternoon will feature former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg. Clarke said that Gregg’s strong commitment to and involvement in international affairs will complement the world outlook delegates need to bring to Model U.N.
The ceremony will be followed by a Friday afternoon session. Delegates will adjourn for the night, before returning for three committee sessions throughout the day Saturday. Saturday night features a social, and the conference will conclude with a final committee session on Sunday.
A number of individual awards are given at the end of the conference. While each director has a different set of qualifications for the “Best Delegate” award, in general, the winner is one who is not afraid to form a block of delegates to get something done or come in front of the room and speak about his or her ideas, Choate said.
The conference also promotes a philanthropic project, Clarke said. This year, DartMUN will be selling shirts and candygrams to students to support the Good Neighbor Health Clinic, which provides dental and medical care to people in the Upper Valley in need of assistance.
Twenty-eight schools will be attending this weekend’s conference, most of which are from New England, Wolff said. While there are five or six new schools joining this year, the remaining schools are returning from previous years.
Over the summer, DartMUN sent out invitations with relevant dates and registration information to the schools that attended the conference last year, though most schools hear about the conference through word of mouth, Clarke said.
While background guides drafted by DartMUN leaders provide a baseline of research, it is up to delegates to collect country-specific data and information, Choate said. Delegates must write a short position paper describing their country’s stance and what they hope to get out of the session, she said.
Many committee directors were involved with Model U.N. in high school, and participating in the conference and seeing competitive, intelligent high school students doing what they did elicits nostalgia, Wolff said. He added that Model U.N. was an opportunity to think critically about foreign policy and other issues not necessarily covered in a high school classroom.
Dartmouth students lacking a background in Model U.N. also get involved.
“A lot of us who are involved are government majors, and it’s certainly interesting to expose high schoolers to some of these international topics,” committee director David Tramonte ’18 said. “Even if you’re not a government major, it’s good to know what’s going on in the world.”
