SMICMUN: setting a standard of excellence

On October 9th, the fourth annual session of SMICMUN took place on the MHS campus. This year’s SMICMUN had 6 forums, all of which were tied to the theme “Just Us”. According to MHS MUN Director Mr. Scott Sanders, the theme “has three meanings”. Just US: “are the problems of the world just the fault of the United States not fulfilling its promise to the UN?”; Justice: “do the problems of the world have to do with a lack of justice?”, and Just us: “should we even be talking about these questions of governments trying to solve the world problems?” Eight schools, comprising of approximately 170 people, either helped with, or attended, the event. The main student leaders of this SMICMUN include Brian Ge (12B) , Jessica Choi (12B), Art Zhang (12A), Wesley Ding (12A), Matthew Yang (10A), Timothy Lin (10C), and Sejoon Park (11A). “The core team started [preparation for SMICMUN] in April last year,” Mr. Sanders revealed. “We worked pretty hard over the summer for this too.”

Over the past four years, SMICMUN has come a long way. When the program was in its first year, “only three schools were invited to come.” Mr. Sanders took over the next year, but it took some time for SMICMUN to expand and grow into the top-quality conference it is now. As the MUN delegates of SMIC-I improved each year, so did SMICMUN. “The quality of debate, especially because now our delegates are some of the best in the city,” said Mr. Sanders, “…it’s actually one of the best conferences in terms of quality of debate in the city.” He and the leadership team believe that every SMICMUN should strive to be better than the last, so there is a constant improvement from year to year.

As for future plans, SMIC-I’s MUN program has maintained an ambitious goal. “Our big mission statement is, locally, we want to be the best. Regionally, we want to be respected so [that] in China and East Asia, when people think of the really good MUN programs, they’ll think of SMIC. And, ultimately, we want to expand that to, globally, we want to be recognized.” To do this, SMICMUN hopes to attend conferences beyond China, in “concentric circles”. Their first step is Hong Kong. After this, they hope to go to Qatar and, eventually, The Hague (THIMUN)–the most prestigious of all conferences.

As they have demonstrated the past four years, SMIC-I’s MUN program is sure to only progress toward greater excellence, while keeping an eye on an ambitious future.

Photos courtesy of Yearbook team