Delegates from the international relations program returned home victorious for the first time after a week at the National Model United Nations conference in New York City.

The conference was held at UN headquarters and simulated the tasks of UN officials to teach students what it means to actually be part of the organization. The students returned to Syracuse with an Outstanding Delegation award, the highest honor given at the conference, said Francine D’Amico, Syracuse University’s model UN faculty adviser and international relations professor.

She said last year’s SU delegates came home with a Distinguished Delegation award, and in years’ past they have gotten an honorable mention. But this is the first year SU students have come home on top.

The 20 student delegates who attended the conference went through an intensive application process, D’Amico said. Each needed to be an international relations major, have a minimum 3.0 GPA and had to take previous IR classes to apply.

The selected students took a three-credit course to prepare for the conference, D’Amico said. They studied the UN system and rules and procedures of the actual event. She said they also learned everything they could about the Republic of Gabon, the country they portrayed at the conference.

D’Amico said the win reflected the hard work they put in during class, which focused on public speaking.

On April 2, the students traveled to New York City, where they applied everything they learned during the class at the actual conference.

‘The hardest part was being able to communicate with people not from the same place as your own and finding common ground,’ D’Amico said. ‘It’s the same as the real UN.’

A lot of students had previous experience with model UN in high school. This, along with good team rapport and support, D’Amico said, allowed the students to be successful.

At the conference, sessions were held from early in the morning to almost 10:30 p.m. D’Amico said the students often worked into the night writing resolutions reports.

Michele Cantos, a senior international relations and public relations major, said it was her first Model UN conference, and she was honored to be part of this year’s delegation.

‘The experience allowed me to see diplomacy in action,’ she said in an email. ‘The best part of this conference was meeting students from all over the world and hearing so many languages being spoken.’

Along with the overall outstanding award, Nicholas Iaquinto and Zachary Jutcovich received honors for having the best position paper, and Ivan Bakin and Kyra Murphy won Best Delegates in Security Council.

‘They worked really hard. It’s really a grueling week,’ D’Amico said. ‘It was impressive to see them take the work very seriously. It wasn’t a game.’

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Published on April 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm

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