When the Deerfield Model United Nations (MUN) team arrived at Yale MUN to compete, a familar face greeted them. Mark Chung ’21, former Co-President of Deerfield’s MUN (and the Scroll’s Op-Ed Editor), was the chair of a committee featuring current Deerfield students.
Throughout the winter term, various members of Deerfield’s MUN team have traveled around New England to compete at the Harvard (January 26-29), Yale (January 19-22), and Boston University (February 10-12) Model UN conferences.
At these events, students take part in specific UN committees and are assigned a country to act as a delegate for. After researching the history and perspectives of their respective countries, students have the opportunity to hone their skills in diplomacy, compromise, and teamwork during the tasks assigned to them during the conferences. Success is determined not by a student’s assigned country’s strength, however, but rather a student’s display of public speaking, writing, and teamwork skills.
In addition to scenarios based upon real-life current events, MUN conferences sometimes incorporate non-existent worlds, such as an Avatar: the Last Airbender themed committee at the Boston University conference. Regardless of the context, the goals of such committees are to draft resolutions to solve relevant problems in whatever universe that may be. In a scenario more based on our reality, protection of cultural heritage sites would be a committee’s goal if assigned to UNESCO, for example.
On top of drafting resolutions, there are other goals of Model UN conferences. For example, Zach Li ’25 was assigned to Norway at BU to draft a UN charter in a scenario set in 1945. To do so, Li said he “focused on an economic standpoint” and “created a three-pronged approach to divide wealth equally.” However, goals at these conferences sometimes go unachieved. In Li’s case, his plan fell through due to collaboration challenges among his group. “We weren’t able to come up with the UN charter as the voting was not clear,” he explained.
John Liu ’26, who competed at the Harvard MUN conference, or “HMUN,” represented Italy in the Eastern European Security Committee focusing on the War in Ukraine. Liu summarized his committee’s final resolutions, sharing, “We decided to stop having sanctions on Russia because they only hurt common Europeans.” Other discussion on the committee focused on “providing food and aid to Ukraine and opening new trade routes.”
While away for these weekend conferences, MUN students had opportunities to explore the college’s surrounding city. Most nights, the groups dined together, with the Harvard team enjoying hotpot and other Asian cuisine during their time in Cambridge.
During COVID-19, conferences typically hosted by colleges were held online, a compromise which was less than ideal for some students. For example, Svetlana Deshpande ’25 said, “you couldn’t meet any people and you just didn’t get the full experience,” referring to the Zoom conferences. She added, “It was really hard to navigate, you had to private message to talk and it was hard to form blocs (countries who agree on a topic).” Thus, the return to in-person conferences this year was widely celebrated.
At the Yale MUN, the Deerfield’s delegation of eight students won three awards. Rich Zhou ’26 was the honorable mention in the Commission on Sustainable Development, Lila King ’24 was the outstanding delegate in the Commission on the Status of Women, and Chelsea Antero ’23 was the best delegate in the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. All three represented Germany, and it was the first in-person MUN conference for Zhou and King. Co-President Antero said, “I had a lot of fun leading a team of smart individuals committed to solving the issues of the world.”
Following three successful trips to Harvard, Yale, and BU, Deerfield MUN is excited to travel to Dartmouth MUN this April to round out their year of competition.