Mayor William Dickinson’s budget plan proposes higher taxes and increased spending. Graphic by Chandler Littleford/The Choate News
This past Sunday, April 7, Choate hosted its fifth annual Model United Nations Conference (MUNC), welcoming more than sixty students from eight schools. Choate’s own Model UN club has already attended several conferences this year at institutions such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and University of Connecticut. Students who attended Choate’s one-day conference were divided into five committees based on their past experience with MUN, as well as their specific interests.
The cabinet for this year’s Choate MUNC included Brandon Zhang ’20, Will Greve ’20, Polina Ermoshkina ’19, and Joanna Ding ’19, who was the Secretary-General for the conference. Ding was elected Secretary-General by the members of Choate’s MUN club. She worked with the club advisers and the rest of the MUN cabinet to select the Under-Secretary Generals for the conference: Greve, Ermoshkina, and Zhang. When selecting undersecretary generals, Ding looked for upperclassmen who have had significant experience with MUN and were capable of managing heavy workloads, which was especially critical in the weeks leading up to the conference.
One notable conflict for this year’s Choate MUNC regarded scheduling. Choate MUNC is usually planned a year in advance, with the dates and logistics set in stone. The MUN advisers decided to hold this year’s Choate MUNC a week earlier than usual, which happened to fall on the same date as a conference hosted by Dartmouth College, as well as two other major high-school conferences. This significantly reduced the number of students available to participate in this year’s conference. While an estimated 60 students traveled to Choate last weekend, this number was a frail 30% compared to conferences held in the past few years.
The theme for this year’s conference was “Moving Forward.” According to Ding, this topic was deliberately chosen not only to inform delegates about the past but to give them a sense of where the world is currently, where it might be going, and what actions should be taken to progress as a society. The five committees built around this central theme, encompassing a range of current issues and allowing delegates to analyze modern problems from a variety of perspectives.
The General Assembly First Committee centered on space militarization, an important issue in today’s world that is relevant to the conflict between India and Pakistan. “Hopefully, with the knowledge these delegates gain, they can use it to create a more peaceful future for the world,” Ding explained.
In addition to the General Assembly, one committee focused on the World Health Organization and discussed universal healthcare and the technological advancements in the medical industry, while a Cyber Crime Committee dealt with online white-collar crime and cybersecurity. Choate MUNC also had a Crisis Committee simulating the Roman Senate in 44 BCE, a tumultuous time for Rome that saw the assassination of Caesar and the Parthian Invasion.
While groups such as the Crisis Committee looked for more experienced members to engage in strong debates, Choate MUNC also welcomed novices, providing a novice committee for students to gain experience in MUN and have fun in a relatively relaxed environment.
This year, Choate received inquiries from faculty from local schools requesting to observe the conference as it unfolded. The Generals hope that the faculty can take what they have observed back to their own schools and institute successful conferences for their own MUN Clubs.
