Award-winning UC Santa Cruz Model UN team to compete in San Francisco

The award-winning UC Santa Cruz Model UN team will compete against other regional college teams February 28-March 3, 2013, at the UC Berkeley Model UN Conference in San Francisco.

UCSC's team won the Outstanding Small Delegation award at the 2011 Intercollegiate Model United Nations competition held at UC Santa Barbara. The UCSC team is organized in collaboration with College Nine’s Model United Nations class taught by Dena Robertson. Team members are raising funds to help cover travel costs to the competition.

Delegates at Model UN competitions negotiate issues at the forefront of international relations and produce resolutions or reports on selected crises. Robertson said the competitions give students an opportunity to sit in the seats of power and negotiate as world leaders with other students. In all negotiations, proposals, and papers, students use the institutional models, protocols, and diplomatic language of the actual United Nations.
 
“I like Model UN because it is a relatively informal style,” said UCSC team member Tom Coxe. "The structure and topics are determined by students, which usually leads to a relevant and productive discussion."

Coxe, a Crown senior majoring in business management economics, said more formal structures limit the time of speakers, regardless of expertise or relevance. "The crisis committees are especially fun; they are sort of a ‘dungeons and dragons’ for politics or history nerds like me," he said.

At the Santa Barbara competition, Coxe assumed the role of Hu Jintao, president of the People's Republic of China, who was leading the country through a territory crisis in the South China Sea. "I got lucky because one of my opponents got aggressive first, and I didn't really have to worry about appearing as a hawk," Coxe said. "So I stayed aggressive and ended up winning the Gavel (1st place) for that committee, which helped UCSC win Outstanding Small Delegation." 

The 2013 UC Berkeley Model United Nations Conference will be held at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco’s Financial District from February 28 to March 3. It will feature 15 committees, spanning numerous geographies and time zones, and will offer “joint crises,” such as nuclear power negotiations of India, Pakistan, and China.

For more information on the UCSC Model UN team, or to contribute to its travel costs, contact Dena Robertson, at demrober@ucsc.edu.