Starting from November 9th and coming to a close on the 11th, the Coex Convention Center was busy with Model United Nations (MUN) delegates rushing about to print their resolutions, heated debates occurring in individual committee rooms, and admin staff members delivering snacks for roughly 400 participants of the international conference. SEOMUN, one of the most prestigious MUN conferences in Korea, took place with many SIS students participating in the conference as delegates and chairs. The SIS MUN club spent three months preparing for this conference by meeting twice a week to debate on resolutions and do chair duties. SEOMUN helped every delegate upgrade their skill significantly.
“In many ways, what I do as an adviser, as well as the other advisers, is help the student chairs and executives train the younger and lesser experienced delegates,” said Jonathan Ames, MUN club adviser. “We set up rooms and work in groups to help the younger students debate in a more comfortable atmosphere to get used to debating in unfamiliar places. With preparation sessions that took place during activity period twice a week, or online, I really think the advisers and experienced members did a good job in helping everyone be successful in this conference. I am very satisfied with this year’s results- we had many Best Delegates, and everyone’s skill visibly improved in this conference.”
Starting from the first day with opening speeches, lobbying, and drafting resolutions and ending with the last debate, the conference passed by very quickly. The delegates from SIS constantly raised their placards waiting to be recognized by the chair to make a speech at least once every debate, wrote amendments for almost every resolution, and waited for the chair to entertain it. By doing so, everyone’s debate techniques improved greatly – some delegates were even awarded the title of Best Delegate and an Honorable Mention. This year’s conference was special due to the large number of awards given to students in SIS, along with a more diverse community made up of people from different nationalities that the delegates could experience in the conference,
“I really liked this year’s SEOMUN conference,” said Emma Lee (11), MUN club member and delegate. “My committee was about issues that I was genuinely interested in and passionate about. It was something I could actively engage in, and I think I am satisfied with the results of the conference- I gained a lot of knowledge and debating skills and got to know more people. This year’s SEOMUN was definitely a fun and educational experience that I could never forget.”
After a delegate is experienced enough with MUN and debating, the next step is for delegates to apply for chair positions; chairs lead the debate in the committee. With 11 SEOMUN committees with chairs from SIS out of 14, this year was a year with an extraordinary amount of chairs in SIS. During preparation sessions, the chairs debated the resolution and helped the delegates improve the quality of their resolutions. This gave the chairs a chance to practice in order to chair perfectly during the actual conference.
“I was really delighted and honored to chair for SEOMUN,” said Yoon Lim (12), MUN club member and chair. “I think a real pleasure for me was that my committee, the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW), was a new addition to SEOMUN, and it was a really large committee with many delegates who were very passionate about really improving the status for women. It was a totally different experience from being a delegate since I could see the overall atmosphere and general direction of where the delegates were going. It was really nice to see that people were really passionate about politics and improving the world in general.”