Suffolk University Model United Nations (SUMUN) won nine awards at two conferences, one at Northeastern and in Washington D.C. last weekend. SUMUN represented Mexico in Washington D.C and Jordan and Saudi Arabia at Northeastern.
SUMUN won the “Position Paper Award”, “Outstanding Delegation Award” and “Outstanding Delegate Award” in D.C. Schools traveled from all over the country in order to compete with each other. SUMUN prepared on weekdays and weekends for three weeks to act as diplomats who debate and negotiate for the countries they represented.
This year, SUMUN’S top priority has been to continue to establish the club’s legacy. Each year the club has its senior members graduate along with most of the e-board, so it is important that they establish the groundworks for the future of the club.
The club wants to make sure that in the upcoming years their students have honed their skills for leadership and that they are able to speak in front of hundred and negotiate to their success, according to club spokespeople.
Matt Wood, a senior member of SUMUN, discussed the transformative experience members have had in the club, in a recent interview with The Suffolk Journal.
“One of the great things to see on SUMUN that happens in a yearly basis is when somebody comes in as a new member, specifically people that haven’t had model UN experience or small UN experience,” said Wood. “They’re quiet and timid and they kind of sit in the back and they’re eager to be there, but they don’t feel that they understand the process and to see that first couple of times.”
Wood said that members usually start to gain confidence throughout the year. The more they are involved, the more they improve.
“You see them leading workshops, giving talks, you see them teaching course material, you see them teaching country position and in the course of a year somebody’s personal wealth personal view of themselves balloons.”
SUMUN spokesperson Hamza Hammad said he believes that the club is a transformative experience for whoever participates and the skills that members have learned to succeed in Model United Nations are applicable in the future as well. SUMUN has a focus on international relations but the club’s priority is in growing their rhetorical skill set rather than expand their knowledge of country relations.
The club’s meetings are lecture style and are conducted by either an e-board member or a professor. Professor Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch spoke at the last meeting and explained a theory for political strategy for SUMUN’s diplomats to use in the upcoming conference. There were not enough chairs for the twenty eight students that showed up in the lecture hall, yet those standing still took notes, asked questions and strategized.
Wood also commented on going back to Harvard this year for a conference.
“We would like to go [to the Harvard Conference] this year with an honest approach what to expect, I think last year we prepared, we had never been, we anticipated something different than what it is. So we would like to see ourselves correct, and prepared for that,” he said.
Wood said that the Harvard conference, by far, is the most competitive of all. SUMUN attended a national conference in Washington D.C and another at Northeastern University, but Harvard is an international conference.
Roughly 205 colleges from 180 countries are set to attend from around the globe to come practice model united nations. Wood explained that last year when SUMUN attended they were surprised by the extreme competitive environment of model united nations.
Yazid Abu Ghazaleh, SUMUN president and Suffolk senior business management major, said he was specifically looking forward to obtaining the Position Paper Award, according to Wood. A Position Paper Award shows that the delegation has prepared extensively for their country, but to the executive board of SUMUN it means that they were able to prepare their students to the utmost of their abilities, said Wood.
SUMUN meets on Tuesdays from 12:15pm to 1:30pm in Sargent Hall Room 295.
