A Successful Stay-at-Home Model UN/Model Congress

Groton’s Model UN/Model Congress club (GMUN/GMC) held a successful, virtual, in-house conference during the first weekend of February. Approximately fifty students—some veterans of past conferences and others new to the experience of role-playing United States senators or United Nations ambassadors—developed and introduced bills and resolutions, all in the course of learning about and discussing some of the key issues of our times. 

GMUN/GMC club heads opted to organize the in-house conference at Groton when the annual conferences that they usually attend in person, hosted by Harvard University, were moved online in December. Ably assisted by other participants, the student leaders developed two concurrent conferences, one for a Model UN and one for a Model Congress.

The Model Congress group created two Senate committees, the Intelligence committee and the Foreign Affairs committee, and assigned students roles as current senators. Student participants held lively debates about U.S.-Iranian relations and domestic terrorism. 

The Model UN group decided to be less traditional and developed a theme based on The Hunger Games. Students, who represented the various districts of Panem, the fictional country, debated how to conduct the games. 

By the conclusion of the conference Sunday morning, Groton students, whether they represented fictional characters or real individuals, had enjoyed participating in a well organized conference—so much so that the club may host a second conference on campus this spring.—Tommy Lamont, Model UN/Model Congress advisor