University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

NEWS RELEASE

CSUN’s Model UN Team Takes National Honors

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., April 25, 2007) — The competition was tough, but so was Cal State Northridge’s Model United Nations (MUN) Team. After five days of negotiations, speeches and writing papers at the National Model UN conference in New York City, the CSUN team walked away with top honors.

Cal State Northridge’s Model United Nations team, won an Outstanding Delegation Award—the equivalent to first place—and an Outstanding Position Papers Award at the conference held last month. More than 270 colleges and universities from around the world took part in the competition.

Political science lecturer Peter Kappas, who oversees the intensive, two-semester MUN course, said he believes this is the first time Northridge has taken the top honor.

"I would suggest the credit goes to the students," Kappas said. "They spent three months preparing specifically and only for this conference…They wrote about seven drafts of their position papers. Three of those drafts were done over the intersession in January."

The winning CSUN delegation included juniors Malte Humpert, Justin Robertson, Justin Suethe, Danae Busby, Samantha Carnell and seniors Aaron Montan, Igor Kagan, Giovanni Batz, Sara Barrett, Lilly Musci, Tim Lovestedt and Jesse Petersen.

During the winter 2006 and spring 2007 semesters, the CSUN MUN team won 33 awards including 11 Research Awards, 10 Distinguished Delegate Awards, and 10 Outstanding Delegate Awards. Research Awards are given on the basis of the quality of a delegate’s position paper and knowledge of the topics. An Outstanding Delegate Award is given to the single best student in committee. A Distinguished Delegate Award is given to the top two to three students in a committee.

Model United Nations is an intensive, two semester course in applied diplomacy. Each class is organized as a simulation of the real United Nations (UN). These simulations are conducted according to certain rules of procedure with which students must become familiar. Students are assigned a country for each simulation, and they must come to class prepared to debate their country’s position on the issues being discussed.

During the academic year, the MUN teams compete in Anaheim and Long Beach, with voluntary contests held in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Team members are assigned a country and represent it within a simulated United Nations environment. The top students go on to the National Model U.N. conference in New York City, where the entire team is assigned one country or non-governmental organization that it represents in U.N. organs such as the General Assembly or Security Council. This year, CSUN represented Iceland.