Saturday, April 10th, marked Concord Academy’s 17th annual CA Model United Nations (CAMUN) conference, the second in a row hosted online. Committees (i.e., groups specialized to each issue) catering to a plethora of current, semi-fictional, and historical issues had formed weeks before. As for the day of, attendance shot to nearly 200 delegates.
CA students ran and planned the daylong conference under the leadership of Secretary-General Griffin Seidel ’21 and with help from faculty advisor Ben Stumpf ’88. Other major leaders included Director of Training Isadora Goldman-Leviton ’21, Under-Secretary-General (USG) of Crisis Hayden Jennings ’21, USG of Registration Claire Masiée ’21, and USG of Logistics Will Tran ’22. Still more joined as chairs (leaders of each committee), crisis researchers, rapporteurs, and pages (of the latter two: technical support and bookkeeping).
Unlike last year’s fully virtual conference, many CAMUN staff had the opportunity to Zoom in from campus, in a determined push for easier inter-staff collaboration and communication. Although many staff members opted to participate from campus, some Zoomed in from around the world, too. Instead of the usual chaos of running from room to room, staff juggled text messages and a staff-only Zoom room to coordinate the conference live.
One unique advantage of the virtual format was that it allowed delegations and staff from across the world to join in, irrespective of their time zone or physical location.
From the delegates’ perspective, responsibilities came mostly as normal: Each delegate embodied a different country or politician to debate and attempt to resolve political and politically-tangent issues. Either assigned to one of two larger, traditional UN structures or to a crisis, they were to solve ongoing, historical, or—if offered by the committee—fantastical issues.
CAMUN is and has always been a monumental event on the school calendar. “We were one of the schools that pioneered this model last April with Phoenix CAMUN […] we gave it that name after the pandemic canceled CAMUN, and our new virtual CAMUN rose from the ashes,” Ben Stumpf told the Centipede. “[Last year’s conference] was a little rushed. This year was much better,” remarked Hayden. With practice comes polish.
Until next year!
CA Delegates Who Won Awards*:
Nathan Rothschild ’23 — Human Rights Council — Best Delegate
Cozette Weng ’23 — Fantasy Crisis: Game of Thrones — Outstanding Delegate
Congratulations to all!