BUMUN at Benedictine
Benedictine University Model United Nations (BUMUN) has over 50 years’ experience attending the National Model United Nations Conference (NMUN) in New York City. Over the past decade, our delegations have gained a reputation as one of the most serious and best-prepared programs at the largest UN simulation, annually receiving delegation, individual delegate and position paper awards.
We attribute this success to our unique program design. Our Head Delegates serve as Student Leaders, working with Professor Joel Ostrow to create the course syllabus, design lesson plans, and create and evaluate assignments. They are the ones with primary responsibility for forming and preparing the delegation to represent the state we are assigned at the annual NMUN Conference. Model UN is a 3-credit course every spring semester (PLSC-2215), and as a course on global politics with emphasis on development and sustainability, and a team exercise with practical, engaged, outside the classroom experience, students completing the course satisfy the Social Science, Global, Sustainability, Engaged Learning and Learning Community requirements towards graduation.
More importantly, we emphasize development of lifelong skills in public speaking, policy writing, and independent research. The Head Delegates gain direct training in leadership and team-building, but all of our delegates become leaders in their own right, as other delegates at the conference know to seek out the BUMUN delegation as they are always be among the best prepared and most effective delegates at the NMUN Conference.
This sustained success has led to our Model UN Exchange with our partners at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, China. For over a decade we have collaborated with our partners in Xi’an, and our students and alumni have developed lifelong friendships and experiences of a lifetime through this partnership.
What is Model UN?
Model UN Simulations simulate a session of the United Nations. Programs such as ours are assigned a state to represent, and students learn to play the role of diplomats of that state. In the Conference, they sit on the committees that their state at the UN sits on; that committee will have an agenda drawn from the UN agenda. At the Conference, students from around the world, from programs each assigned to represent a different state, work together to develop solutions to pressing global problems.
As a result, you will learn:
- About a variety of pressing global issues;
- About the politics, economics, and culture of a different state and people;
- The varying approaches to and understanding of major world problems such as hunger, poverty, the environment and security
- The value and difficulties of effective teamwork;
- Skills in public speaking, policy research and writing, negotiation and teamwork, and leadership.
PLSC-2215 Model United Nations is a course that meets every spring semester!
Benedictine University covers the cost of registration and lodging in New York. Students are responsible for airfare and incidentals (roughly $400-$500).
The Diplomacy in Action Sponsorship Program offers awards to offset the cost for students, based on financial need.