A gavel pounds and a roundtable discussion ensues. Sixteen people, identified by the countries they represent, sit and decide the fate of the world.
It is the year 2025 and a troop of Manoan super-soldiers has just invaded Austria - or so it appears within the confines of the Emergency Bioethics Committee, one of the 11 committees within the 2002 Virginia International Committee Simulation.
For the past seven years, the University's International Relations Organizations has hosted a three-day collegiate Model United Nations program in which international topics past, present and future are debated and resolved.
This year, about 185 delegates made their way on Grounds from 20 different colleges, including Bucknell University, South University of Florida and Canada's Concordia University.
The planning for VICS 2002, from hotel reservations to the committee issues, has been in the works for a year, since the end of VICS 2001. Since that time, staff director and fourth-year College student Dawn Bell and other members of the VICS Secretariat have spent countless hours choosing committee staff and reviewing topics for debate.
The secretariat chose the committees in order to represent a broad spectrum of international relations interests, from bioethics to imperialism to national security. This past weekend, half of Newcomb Hall Room 168 became the site for a meeting of the European Union.
"We have a group of delegates representing each country in the EU and they come here and debate issues," explained second-year College student Liz Grussendorf, an EU committee vice-moderator. "We give them crises that are going on in Europe and they decide how to deal with those crises. They pretend that they are the prime minister or the head of their country and they try to act in the best interests of their country."
The problem at hand on Saturday was the emergence of a Polish dictator and a build-up of troops along the country's borders.
This simulation, chaired by third-year College student Garrick Long, sought to combine many of the issues debated within the European Union today.
This simulation gives "a chance for [the delegates] to use rapid reaction force, which is a big topic in the EU right now," Grussendorf said. Behind the European Union, in the other half of Newcomb 168, the 2025 Emergency International Bioethics Conference convened. This conference met under a fictional pretext regarding a fictional nation.
"It takes place in the fictional country of Manoa, between the Czech Republic and Austria," said committee chair and second-year college student Megan Doherty. "A very charismatic dictator, Hitler-esque figure has taken over and he is trying to enact a plan of genetic perfection of humankind and he's attempting to invade Austria."
As if this were not bad enough, the committee learned that Manoa had manufactured genetically modified super-soldiers. In response to an invasion of Austria, the delegates of the committee have had to settle the issue of biological warfare.
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"We realized that they have very little immune system capabilities," Doherty said. "So we have now dropped the common cold in Austria as well as Manoa, to eliminate the laboratories in which they are being made and to kill the forces that have occupied Vienna."
Debating the issue of bioethics for the Czech Republic was Danielle Hale, a first-year student from Florida State.
"We come here to represent our country's best interests but at the same time to work diplomatically with other countries to achieve solutions," Hale said. Her preparation for this largely scientific committee has amassed a research stack "a couple inches thick."
In coming up with the idea behind her simulation committee, Doherty aimed for controversy.
"The reason that I devised this committee was because I wanted to examine some of the issues behind the Holocaust: racism, race-related intolerances and xenophobia," Doherty explained. "And also the aspect of eugenics and the ability to genetically perfect humankind."
The bioethics conference committee was set in the future because Doherty felt it was important to see some of the sentiments of the Holocaust manifest in the world today.
"I wanted them to really imagine that it could happen again," Doherty said.
Upstairs, in Newcomb 389, a meeting of the Secretary General's Good Offices met to debate past, rather than future international problems.
The Secretary General's Good Offices committee simulated a 1988 convention of the Geneva Accords - "a convention of delegates from four parties in the central Asian region that were supposed to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Afghanistan," said committee chair and second-year College student Aaron Silverman.
The talks modeled the Geneva Court's mediating function, "which allows the parties to come together and engage in neutral and unbiased talks," Silverman explained. The issues at stake were refugees, the presence of Soviet troops, government corruption and domestic rebels.
Silverman's motivation in formulating this committee was based on topical international issues.
"I was thinking that because of all the tension in Afghanistan today, it's a good idea to get into that and investigate some of these issues that many Americans don't understand," Silverman said.
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Within all the VICS committees, large numbers of staff members delivered communicates, formulated crises and moderated discussion.
"My staff and I feed information, as home governments, to the delegates and we sort of direct how things are going," Silverman said.
In a room down the hall from his committee, Israeli Knesset committee chair and second-year College student Kurt Mitman coordinates a delegation of 12. Within this committee, Mitman and his staff sought to simulate a conference meeting similar to those held between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his various ministers.
After each delegate was prepped on his or her minister's duties and abilities, all 12 were brought together and given crises to solve.
"We bring them altogether and throw things at them like we'd have in the news," Mitman said. "We started off our committee with a suicide bombing in a crowded pedestrian street in Jerusalem."
Members of the Israeli Knesset committee usually were students with a keen interest in Middle-Eastern affairs.
"People usually self-select which committee they want based on their interests or what they're studying," Mitman explained.
For this reason, the discussions that encompassed all the committees carried with them the enthusiasm of their delegates.
"It's really exciting to see how many different and creative ways people can develop to solve a lot of the problems that the high level leaders of the world are struggling with right now," Mitman said.
Jason Phillips, the representative of the German Republic in the Scramble for Africa committee and fifth-year University of Alabama student, agreed.
He felt the VICS conference in particular was led and attended by motivated, enthusiastic students.
"This is my third year at VICS and it's arguably the best committee I've been in," Phillips said. "This conference really shows a lot of the benefits that the University of Virginia has to offer because the students here are so very intelligent and motivated"
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