On November 14th, the John Jay Model United Nations Club hosted their second annual conference, JJMUNC. Model UN is a popular club at John Jay in which members act from the point of view of a country or an individual to simulate UN Committees.

In the second year, 213 students attended the conference and participated in the seven different committees. These students learned about international affairs and public speaking through interactions with other delegates inside their committees. The committees were all chaired and staffed by experienced members of John Jay’s MUN club. In addition, new members of the club attended the conference as delegates. The staff prepared for months to ensure the delegates a smooth and fun conference. Each member of the staff was assigned to a committee where they were either a staffer, a Crisis Director, a Vice Chair, or a Chair.

This year John Jay featured three types of committees: General Assembly, Specialized, and Crisis. The General Assembly committees are most like the United Nations, and the participants acted as countries to solve pertinent global issues such as the use of drones in the military or freedom of the media. The Chairs of these committees were Matt Sorkin and Rachel Lubbe for DISEC, as well as Simrit Uppal and Lizzy Parry for SOCHUM. The Specialized committees included a Fortune 500 Summit and a meeting of MLB Owners. These specialized committees utilize similar procedures to the General Assembly committees, but do not have the delegates act as an country, but rather as an organization or individual. The Chair of the Fortune 500 Summit was Ishmam Nur and the Vice Chair was Jack Buckley. For the MLB Committee, Tim Parker (who is also the Vice President of John Jay’s MUN Club) served as a Chair along with Griffin Wallick. For JJMUNC II, John Jay created three Crisis Committees: Russian Revolution White, Russian Revolution Red, and the Roman Senate. In these committees, delegates acted as individuals in solving the problems that plagued their group and were also given twists through various events controlled by Crisis Staffers. The day in the Crisis Committees were full of attempted assassinations and planning strategies for war. The Russian Revolution Committees were a Joint Crisis Committee, meaning that their storylines were intertwined. The Russian Revolution Red committee was chaired by Ike Radin and vice chaired by Emma Boden. The White side was chaired by Kailas Amin and vice chaired by Willa Shiel. Crisis Director Ryan Kramer as well as Assistant Crisis Director Marisa Joseph directed the crises of the JCC. JJMUNC II also featured its first ancient history crisis in the Roman Senate Committee. Delegates acted as Senators right after the death of Caesar in 44 BCE and debated how to proceed with the Republic. Lucy Siegel and Daniel Gordon were the Chairs of this committee, and Andrew Wittner served as the Crisis Director.

The participants from the other schools thoroughly enjoyed JJMUNC II. Throughout the day the delegates had fun debating, meeting new people, and competing in the committees. Dobbs Ferry Model UN Advisor Michael Pagano tweeted “Successful day at JJMUNC! Thanks to John Jay for putting on a great conference”. Besides Dobbs Ferry, 12 other schools attended the conference. In the past few years, the John Jay Model United Nations Club has grown immensely, and now is one of the largest clubs at John Jay. JJMUNC is a premier conference in New York, now hosting the largest amount of students at a high school level in Westchester. President and Secretary General of JJMUNC Daniel Gordon attributes the success of the club to the members within it, “Our recent successes are because of the wonderful members in our club. For JJMUNC II, the Secretariat performed optimally and our advisor, Candy Wilmot, along with the school administration, pushed us to succeed.” Gordon also encourages students interested in international affairs, politics, or public speaking to join the Model UN Club at John Jay: “It is a great experience. It really helps with public speaking and exposes our members to international affairs. Most importantly, our members enjoy the competition and environment. As I always like to say, ‘Mun is fun’.”