On Thursday, April, 19, 14 Capital University students will be departing early in the morning to fly to San Francisco in order to attend the Model UN Far West conference for Capital’s Model UN class.
The Model UN Class is a variation mock United Nations conference, as well as a class. It can be considered a club at certain universities and colleges, but is considered a three credit hour college class at Capital. The Conference in San Francisco is mandatory to pass the class, and will feature students from numerous schools in the United States. Each college or university attending gets at least one unique global State to research and represent at the conference, just as ambassadors from that global state would in actuality do at the United Nations in New York City. Capital’s students will be representing three countries: Somalia, Mexico, and New Zealand, which each country being divided up between the members of the class.
Along with being split up by countries, the students representing each country are also split up into committees such as the General Assembly of the United Nations, the 4th Committee, and the 6th Committee.
The General Assembly will focus on two main issues within this conference, which is if the governing body of the country the students represent supports Palestine becoming its own state, and the opinions of the governing body of the country the students represent toward race and gender based violence. The class and conference are opinion based by the Governing body of each individual state the students represent.
“It can be difficult to represent a Governing body’s opinion when it completely differs from one’s own opinion and values, such as the allowance of the continuation for mass rape and slavery being used as a war tactic,” freshman Stephanie Garrison said.
Due to the timing and the necessity of the Conference, many of the students are finding it difficult to prepare for classwork for other classes, finals, and work schedules. As well as this, disorganization proved to be a difficulty within the class for planning the trip, which is mandatory for passing the class.
“We were responsible as students, for coming up with a large amount of the needed funds for the trip which proved to be difficult for us to do without proper resources and communication from the administration and staff,” Sophomore Abbie Carver said.
“Due to the fact that attending the conference is mandatory for passing the course, it would have been nice to have had the funds required to even have a chance of passing the class be provided, rather than having us as students scramble to finish all of the work as well as raising the funds,” freshman Tricia Kehl said.
The students went to Student Government for funds, wrote to faculty asking for sponsorship, and also held a movie poster sale as a fundraiser. The Dean of the University was responsible for coming up with the rest of the needed funding for the trip.
“We would like to personally thank the Dean for all of his help and support through this process,” Carver said.
Despite the difficulties, the students are both prepared and excited to both represent Capital University as an academic body amongst other colleges and universities, as well as to represent their countries to the General Assembly.
“We’ve worked very hard to get to the conference, we plan on doing our best, and hopefully we can come back with a new view on the world,” Sophomore Brianna Murphy said.
“Most African countries feel a solidarity with each other, I was in South Africa when the famine hit Somalia, and I saw outreach from the South African community unparalleled to what I see in the United States, I consider it a privilege to represent Somalia in this conference, given my experiences on the African continent,” Carver said.
