Model United Nation Club invited students from around the western United States to engage in debate on real-world crises and collaborate to find solutions. The club’s goal is to teach students strong leadership and public speaking skills. 

UCCS’ MUN club, which started in September 2024, held its most recent conference on Feb. 8 in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force Academy.  
 
During the conference, students are given a country or region to represent. Then, they have debates with other delegates about their nation’s issues. This requires deep research in preparation for the conference so that students can accurately represent their country’s issues. All the debate topics center on real life problems and events. 

For this conference, registration included choosing from five themed rooms. Student delegates picked between three general assemblies and two crisis rooms.  

The general assembly room themes were UNESCO, UNICEF and Space Z. The crisis rooms were both based on the attack on the 1972 Olympics in Munich by Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group. There was a room representing Munich and one representing the West Bank.  

Felice Hendersen, who is at the conference for the second time, represented Mozambique at the UNICEF session. “Model UN has really helped me learn [about] what’s going on in the world. Plus, it’s a great networking opportunity and gives you strong public speaking and debate skills,” Hendersen said. 

Each group had three 2-hour sessions, separated by an opening and closing ceremony, chair feedback, and breaks, for 11 hours in total. The opening ceremony was short and delegate-oriented, helping delegates find their chair leaders and room numbers. During the sessions, each room debated two issues central to the room’s theme. 

There were 16 delegates and two heads in the UNICEF room. Each delegate represented a country and debated its biggest child welfare issues. The delegates worked with other countries, creating allyships to solve their mutual problems.  

For one of the topics, child soldiers, the delegates each presented a statement about how having children in the miliary is unjust, and the steps their nations want to take to stop children from becoming soldiers. The central issues mentioned were lack of education, poverty and too few penalties for offenders.  

Through a series of passed notes, moderated caucuses (organized debate) and unmoderated caucuses (unorganized discussion between countries), the delegates made allies and solved their international child welfare issues, nation by nation.  

The chairs and delegates used professionalism and strong leadership skills to navigate debates. Their ability to collaborate and work together with countries with similar views was well-practiced, and each nation made resolutions with their allies to help with their common issue.  

At the Feb. 8 conference, there were over 100 students from UCCS and USAFA in attendance, as well as from other surrounding universities, like CU Denver and Colorado College.  

If you are interested in joining the Model UN club or attending the next conference, email  [email protected] about your inquiry.  

Model United Nation Conference at UCCS on Feb. 9. Photo by Anysia Hovel.