By Michael Todd
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa Model United Nations program hosted the twenty second annual Los Angeles Invitational MUN conference on Dec. 3-4, throughout classrooms on campus.
Advanced and novice debaters participated in the conference, however, novice only participated on Saturday while advanced continued into Sunday. Twenty five schools and approximately 1140 students attended the conference.
“The conference was the largest we’ve ever hosted” Secretary General and senior Eliza Davis said. “We’ve been planning it for eight months and we are really proud of everyone that worked on it.”
Students used time in class to work on preparation, which included activities such as printing placards, and creating a website for the debate. Participants do extensive research on their topics in order to be fully prepared when it is time for the conference.
Photos: Model UN students compete at LAIMUN.
“Eliza and I worked very hard to make this conference the best that it could be,” Secretary General and senior Matt Dumont said. “We were in charge of virtually every aspect and we are very proud of how the conference turned out.”
Approximately 100 Costa MUN students helped organize the conference by doing tasks such as working during the conference as chairs and legals, which means they ask debaters to speak and grade them. Fifty students participated in the conference, and since they ran the conference they were awarded separately in order to avoid claims of being bias.
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“We want to be very serious and do things properly and at a higher standard,” MUN teacher Robert Timberlake said. “It took a lot of monitoring and good leadership at many levels, and you had to have a real team pull this off.”
Video: Mira Costa student Troy Gleason speaks regarding his topic during the Model UN conference at Mira Costa. This conference continued until Sunday afternoon, where he was rewarded with a commendation.
Costa students were awarded eight best delegate awards, which is more than the previous record of seven best delegate awards so far this year. They felt as if they improved the conference from years past because it went very smoothly and the students all did their jobs, Dumont said.
“I went in to watch several committees this weekend and I received very positive feedback from students of other schools,” Dumont said. “I was extremely happy with how the conference turned out.”
The next conference Costa will participate in is the Ivy League Model UN conference at the University of Pennsylvania in January. The program will take approximately 34 advanced students to the conference.
“We’ve aimed to win best school at every conference this year,” Timberlake said. “Whether the conference is local or national, we have the talent to win best school every time.”
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