Model United Nations
The CSULB MUN Program has continued its successful streak in the 2023-2024 academic year. The new MUN Club leadership includes Sarah Arya (Co-President and Director of Research and Writing), Grant Latour (Co-President), Evan Stein (Vice President), Adaugo Asinugo (Secretary) and Matthew Wong (Treasurer), Michael Harris (Events Coordinator), Aivy To (Director of Fundraising), Ethan Bray (Director of Conference Skills), Genesis Chacon (Director of Social Media), Joshua Mims (Director of Conference Research), and Kyle Smith (Director of Recruitment and New Members). We won several awards at regional and national conferences we attended. At the 2023 Far West Conference in San Francisco, CA, our team earned the Slanzcka Achievement Certificate (Best Position Paper Award), and delegates Sarah Arya and Mikayla Browne were honored as General Assembly Rapporteurs (peer award given to an outstanding delegation). At the 2023 National MUN in Washington, DC., our double delegates (Sarah Arya and Mikayla Browne, Dennis Brownlee and Adaugo Asinugo, and Evan Stein and Rick Dorrhauer) earned Outstanding Position Paper Awards across three committees. Sarah Arya served as a chair for the General Assembly Third Committee at the 2024 Inland Empire Conference for the MUN (IECMUN). The entire CSULB Delegation representing Cuba earned an Honorable Mention. Similarly, at the 2024 National MUN in New York, our CSULB Delegation representing the Republic of Moldova received an Honorable Mention.
In addition to the successful MUN conference experience, the CSULB MUN Program is hosting its inaugural BeachMUN Conference on 27 April 2024. BeachMUN is open to CSULB students from all majors and to other universities and Model UN programs. In addition, the MUN Program co-sonsored the annual Elena Diane Curris Global Issues Lecture, delivered by Eric Tistounet (former UN Human Rights Council official) on 16 April 2024 at the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden. Conference Updates The 2023 MUN of the Far West was our big comeback moment. We represented Latvia and Ireland and returned home with several awards and recognitions. Mikayla Browne and Sarah Arya, representing Latvia in the UN General Assembly, received the Slanzcka Achievement Certificate (Best Position Paper award), and they were also elected to serve as the rapporteurs of their committee (peer award given to an outstanding delegation). In addition, the Third Committee, which included members of our Latvia delegation, Kyle Smith and Evan Stein, received an award for being the most cooperative committee. In addition, we attended R’MUN on May 20, 2023. where Grant Latour, representing Russia at the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), received the Best Delegate Award.
In Fall 2023, the CSULB MUN program reached new heights. We increased our membership through promotional activities during the campus Week of Welcome and CLA Day. As our numbers increased, we dedicated more time and energy to training our new members and improving their research, writing, and speaking skills. We also provided them with opportunities to test these skills and have an immersive experience at FunMUN (themed practice sessions within club meetings) and several MUN conferences. The first conference of Fall 2023 was Trojan MUN, which was organized by USC. The conference took place in Los Angeles between 19 and 22 October. We sent our largest delegation yet to the Trojan MUN conference, which served as the first MUN conference for many of our new members. Our delegation of 24 students attended the 6th Committee (Legal) of the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE). We then attended a practice conference at Riverside City College on 4 November. This practice conference helped our delegation to test their skills. Then came the moment we were all waiting for: the NMUN Conference in Washington, DC. This was certainly the highlight of the semester. We brought a very competitive team to represent the Republic of Cuba in DC composed of the following students: Travis Gillette and Joshua Mims (UN Development Program), Dennis Brownlee and Adaugo Asinugo (UN General Assembly), Evan Stein and Rick Dorrhauer (Third Committee), Kyle Smith and Matthew Wong (Commission on Population and Development) Grant Latour and Michael Harris (Food and Agriculture Organization), Mikayla Browne and Sarah Arya (UN Environmental Assembly). We received multiple awards at our first-ever national conference in DC. Three of our double delegates received Outstanding Position Paper Awards. Dennis Brownlee and Adaugo Asinugo for their work at the UN General Assembly; Evan Stein and Rick Dorrhauer for the Third Committee; and Mikayla Browne and Sarah Arya for the UN Environmental Assembly. Last but not least, our entire delegation of Cuba received the Honorable Mention Award.
Spring 2024 is an equally exciting moment for the program. We continued to recruit new members and train them throughout the semester and through regional conferences such as R’MUN in UC Riverside (24 February) and the Inland Empire Conference for the MUN (IECMUN) at Riverside City College (2 March). Our Co-President, Sarah Arya, chaired the General Assembly Third Committee at the IECMUN conference. The team spent the late spring preparing for the 2024 MUN of the Far West, which takes place between 19 and 23 April in San Francisco. Our preparations also included planning for the 2025 MUN of the Far West Conference, where the CSULB MUN Program will chair an International Court of Justice simulation.
