Nearly 800 business suit-clad high schoolers descended onto Grounds the weekend of Nov. 16. Though this was all many University students saw of the the International Relations Organization's annual Virginia Model United Nations conference, behind the scenes, 16 committee chairs and vice chairs, four staff directors, seven crisis directors, 30 staff members and a secretariat of seven people had worked hard throughout the past year to make the event a success.
Participants debated issues ranging from arms deals in South Africa to the Iranian nuclear program, toured the University, wrote working papers, voted on resolutions and attended a dance during their time on Grounds.
Third-year College student Charlotte Slaiman was this year's secretary-general of VAMUN, placing her in charge of the entire conference.
"It's a huge undertaking," she said, citing the presence of hundreds of high school students, all accompanied by adults, along with a significant staff of University students. "My job is to see the big picture and make sure everything comes together. I had the experience of doing small parts of the process [as a member of the secretariat last year], but I didn't really have that experience of pulling everything together, so that was a difficult thing for me to learn."
Another part of the preparation was something novel: having five committees that would interact with each other in a joint meeting during the last session.
"It was our brainchild -- we had put it together and watched it grow," Slaiman said. "It was really cool [that] kids were having this experience, and it was because of us."
One of the most stressful things that had to be done in preparation for the conference was reserving rooms, according to Slaiman. She said some of the committees included about 100 students. Other committees required two rooms -- one for the committee and another for the University staff coming up with potential crises for the student participants to field.
Another major part of preparation is ensuring there is an adequate number of participants, Slaiman said. High school students had been registering throughout the semester, and the secretariat worked to assign each student to a committee. With each school wanting to represent certain countries, there is always overlap, and it was up to the secretariat to sort everything out.
"It is a huge amount of work they're doing," Slaiman said of the secretariat.
Other University students worked behind the scenes to chair and staff different committees.
"Chairing involves more of the administrative [aspect]...participating involves more ... learning about the specific situation and learning about policy," said third-year College student Gary Lawkowski, who acted as chair of the United States National Security Council Committee.
Lawkowski said the role of chair involves, among other things, informing students about the issues they will be discussing by creating a background guide. He began working on this guide during the summer and started coordinating with the crisis director early in the fall semester to develop a crisis for participants to resolve.
Overall all, Lawkowski said, the chairs keep things moving and ensure delegates are informed while also helping to decide awards at the conclusion of the conference.
The student participants, on the other hand, are responsible for coming prepared to discuss the developing situation from the perspective of the country or person they represent.
"We did quite a bit of research and wrote papers," Holton-Arms High School senior Caroline Regan said. "It wasn't too bad, but we did enough research to be able to talk about the topics."
On the whole, this year's high school students seemed to appreciate all the work put into the conference.
"It all seems well organized," Regan said. "The chairs were really nice and excited."
Annapolis High School sophomore Lily Sloss, who worked on the Disarmament and International Security committee, said the conference was interesting because the topics discussed were relevant to her life as an American citizen.
While Jill Weakland, a freshman at Maggie Walker Governor's School, found the conference topics interesting, she said she felt a little overwhelmed at first. She also noted that the conference was larger than she expected.
The VAMUN conference brought together a variety of students from many locations. Sloss said her favorite part of VAMUN was getting to meet people from other schools, some as far away as Turkey,
Weakland said her favorite part was just walking around the University. In fact, Slaiman said this year the IRO surveyed participants about their experience at the University, and although results have not been fully tallied yet, many students said VAMUN made them want to come to the University.
"We have long suspected that VAMUN encourages kids to apply to U.Va., and we have innumerable anecdotes of friends who cite it as an influence," Slaiman said.
Indeed, many IRO members have themselves been involved in Model U.N. for many years. This is Lawkowski's seventh year involved with the program, having previously participated and chaired in high school.
As for Slaiman, it was prior participation in Model U.N. that motivated her to run for the position of secretary-general.
"One of the very small roles of the secretary-general is making the introductory and closing speech to all the kids," Slaiman said. "When I was in high school and I would see that person being in charge and giving that speech -- that's what I wanted to do -- engender this love of MUN in this new crop of kids. It's really cool to be a part of that"
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