Students receive highest honors at National Model United Nations Conference

Fort Worth, TX

5/1/2008

At this year’s National Model United Nations (NMUN) Conference in New York City, members of TCU’s Model United Nations team received recognition in all three categories of awards, including an “Outstanding,” the highest level of recognition for a team’s overall representation of a country, which was awarded to the TCU team representing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Two TCU students, Justin Brown and Matt Buongiorno, were recognized as the outstanding student delegates on the General Assembly Plenary, the largest committee at the conference, for their excellence in forwarding the DPRK position before the committee.

In its fifth year of participation in this conference, TCU represented the Czech Republic and DPRK.  TCU’s Czech Republic team received “Distinguished” honors, which is second only to “Outstanding.”

According to Dr. Eric Cox, assistant professor of political science and team director, most schools representing two countries usually win only one type of recognition and said, “It is quite unusual for one school to receive that level of recognition at this conference.”

This year’s conference had 180 countries represented by about 150 schools from around the world, and just over 2000 students were present at the conference.
Alex Federer, a senior social work major and member of the DPRK team, said her experiences with NMUN have made her more aware of issues in the global community.

“I would love to work on an international level…it’s the idea of making a real change that makes me want to pursue a career internationally,” Federer said.

Students pair up on a particular committee to represent their country, and each committee produces a two-page position paper to briefly express their country’s position on a particular issue or topic. Ten students represented the DPRK on five committees, and 18 students represented the Czech Republic on nine committees.

Awards are given to the countries that have outstanding position papers for every committee on which they are represented. About 10 percent of countries are recognized as having exceptional papers, and this year, both countries that TCU represented won that recognition.

For more information about TCU’s Model UN team, visit www.pol.tcu.edu or contact Dr. Eric Cox at e.cox@tcu.edu.