MUN Wins Top Awards at Santa Barbara Competition

On November 5-6, CMC Model United Nations (MUN) participated in Santa Barbara Intercollegiate Model United Nations (SBIMUN) held at UC-Santa Barbara. The CMC MUN team ended last year with a bang and hopes to build upon its success at UCLA’s LA MUN last April.

Santa Barbara Intercollegiate Model United Nations represented the school year’s first head-to-head meeting between prominent West Coast Model UN teams. Over 300 delegates from across the country attended the conference. The rapidly growing CMC MUN team sent 24 delegates to compete, qualifying CMC as a “Large Delegation” for the first time in recent history. Other Large Delegation participants included UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-San Diego, and USC.

The CMC MUN team put forth an impressive showing and came away with the Best Large Delegation award, considered the conference’s most prestigious honor.

CMC delegates fared exceptionally well, successfully leading debates on topics including cyber-terrorism, nuclear energy, regional military crises, and more. To top it off, CMC earned six Best Delegate awards from 10 conference committees. UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Santa Cruz, and Victor Valley College each earned only one each.

Lauren Callahan (’14), Tess Hubbeling (’15), Carolyn Lenderts (’14), Neil Malani (’13), Sho Kajima (’15), Harry Pellicoro (’15), Hyo Sung Joo (’15), Caitlin Highland (’14), Ankit Sud (’14), Kanupriya Rungta (’14), Andy Willis (’14), Karan Malik (’15), Vikrant Jain (’15), Ian O’Grady (’15), Mallika Srinivasan (’15), Ali Siddiqui (’15), Daniel Shane (’13), Arjun Kapur (’14), Shriya Ravishankar (’14), Jasjeet Virk (’13), Rita Gilles (’15), Dante Toppo (’15), Aseem Chipalkatti (’15), and Ajay Sridhar (’12) represented CMC at the conference.

Successful conference delegates must have exceptional public speaking skills, a well-researched committee topic, and excellent leadership skills to manage a large body of delegates with differing opinions in order to reach a strong and applicable resolution. Delegates must follow strict parliamentary procedure, but also must be able to strategically gather support form other delegates in un-moderated caucuses.

Kapur, Kajima, Chipalkatti, Hubbeling, and Siddiqui all received awards in their first ever Model United Nations conference, besting delegates with years of experience at both the high school and college MUN levels. Kapur, 2011 participant, admires Model UN “because it gives people a chance to understand the intricate and difficult process of passing legislation while improving your own skills in speech and debate.”

Many CMC delegates felt their experience to be enlightening as well as rewarding. For example, Kajima was a part of the cyber-terrorism committee and fared extremely well, winning best delegate. When asked what he took away most from the experience, Kajima responded, “The conference gave me a great idea of how to manage dissension within a room and how to turn it into a consensus, which I feel can apply to the real world in many different circumstances.”

The CMC MUN team looks to continue its success at the University of Pennsylvania’s Model United Nations Conference in December, which is considered one of the most prestigious and competitive college MUN conferences in the United States.