Author: Mika Arimoto
Editor: Tin D.
Do you know the United Nations (UN)? Of course, you do. One of the largest organizations in the world, the UN is a place for fruitful discussion among countries to occur. However, do you know what the Model United Nations is? Since we do have such a club here in TIU, why don’t we take a peek into TIU Model United Nations (or TIU MUN for short)? Let us do so through the eyes of Nimrod Persson, a 4th year International Relations major and also the current president of this varsity club.
Activities
TIU MUN is an academic extracurricular varsity club that simulates how UN works. According to Nimrod, they discuss international issues, human rights, climate change, and other related global issues to find solutions and make the world a better place. They research these topics and present them through position papers and debates. Their primary activity revolves around conferences, both in hosting and participating. Up to now, they have joined various conferences such as Japan University, English MUN, All Japan MUN, Indonesia MUN, and Harvard WorldMUN. Most of the time, they returned with awards and certificates. The club was also able to receive the Chancellor Special Award from TIU in 2018, for which they are very proud and grateful.
Usually, conferences last around one week, so in order to prepare for that short period of time, they also hold workshops with experts, academic professors, and former senior members to help current members become better delegates and to learn new skills. These skills are not only beneficial for them to be an MUN delegate, but they are also helpful in later career development. Non-members can also join depending on whether the workshops are open to the public or not, although most are exclusive for members.
Structure
TIU MUN is divided into three internal departments. Firstly, there are the executives, which consists of one president (currently Nimrod) and two vice presidents. Generally, they lead the club as a group in conjunction with the officers. They oversee the club and make sure regular operations go smoothly, ensuring that officers have the necessary resources to carry out tasks. Secondly, there are the officers, or the so-called “glue” of the club. They hold everything together. They organize the meetings, manage conferences, hold workshops, and create fun activities for members. Lastly, there are the regular members, who join these activities. Despite this vertical structure, the atmosphere is very lax since they are all well acquainted with each other. During normal meetings, you can see TIU MUN as one big “family.”
Recent Developments
Recently, due to the spread of Covid-19, meetings and other matters have been handled on Discord, a platform that allows easy communication in channels of various categories for a group of people. TIU MUN does have serious categories such as conference planning and mock General Assembly. However, they also have more casual categories such as general chat, meme and videos. This allows members to have fun and get to know each other. As a result, according to Nimrod, this has made everyone become closer since they can talk to each other regardless of time, whether it be chatting or academic assistance.
Message to readers
“From personal experience, my time in TIU initially, I did not have a lot of friends and even if I had, I did not become close enough. And I consider this as a lonely time where you go to class and go home routine. My experience after finding MUN was “night and day.” I realized quickly that it was not only academic extra-curricular activity strictly serious 24/7 “constantly debating.” They are different walks of people in the club where everybody has different ideas, perspectives, experiences, and it makes a great melting-pot to meet new people that you never thought you would have met. TIU MUN gives you a great platform to make friends in a way that the classroom setting cannot provide, especially nowadays where we don’t have the means to talk since students do not go to school anymore. As the Zoom class session ends, that’s it, class is over. You tend to be alone and lonely. With this club, it became a mini-break time between classes. We check on each other on Discord to check on how the class was. It’s a great experience and a great way to make new friends and meet new people.
I would absolutely recommend people to join TIU MUN. I can promise you there will be a lot of fun along the way.”
TIU MUN is open for recruitment at the start of every semester. Non-members can also come to see how the club is. For more information, please do check their Facebook page here.
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