The Mount Greylock Model United Nations Delegation has had a busy couple of months as they entered the third year of the club’s existence. Through the efforts of several Williams College coaches along with the enthusiasm of Mount Greylock students, the Model UN club was brought back to Mount Greylock in the spring of 2016. It was only a little over a year ago that the Mount Greylock Model United Nation Club attended its first conference, the 2017 conference at Clark University. Since then, participating students have traveled to various conferences in the region.

So far this year the team has attended two conferences at Phillips Exeter and Clark University. Twelve Mount Greylock students traveled to the later on November 17, joining about 300 other students coming from various schools. Leading up to the conference, students took on different approaches to preparation. “Some people are going to prepare for days, while some people are going to prepare for a couple hours,” Co-captain Avery Powers said. “I get acquainted enough with the topic that I can debate it comfortably.”

Freshman Krishan Rai’s approach is heavily research-based. At the latest conference, Krishan was a representative of Paraguay in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). By the end, he was also the recipient of the Clark Book Prize. This prize is awarded to the delegate who wrote the best position paper in the entire conference. As explained by the expert, “a position paper is basically what you write before you go to a conference to organize your research.” As part of this process, the delegate writes about their country policy – foreign and domestic – past international action, and finally, possible solutions.

This weekend, two members, Oscar Low and Charlie McWeeny, traveled to New York City for another conference at the United Nations International School. This year, the conference is hosted just down the road from the real UN headquarters in New York at the United Nations International School. Every three years, the conference takes place in the actual UN building. McWeeny imagines it “feels a little bit less like Model UN and more like real UN there.” With up to 500 delegates attending, McWeeny noted that “you get international kids, people from everywhere, which is the really cool thing about Model UN.”

In the coming year, Powers said that the team is also currently trying to register for Boston University MUN and Tufts MUN. Both are multi-day conferences where participants stay overnight at the campuses. As Powers put it, “multi-day conferences tend to include a lot more in-depth debate about certain issues and more surprises, and obviously they’re very social.”  Whichever conference they end up attending, it will be their first multi-day conference as an official club and is sure to be an exciting and engaging experience, according to Powers.