After boundless committee meetings, the 45th annual session of the Model United Nations (MOUN) of the Far West, hosted by SF State's International Relations 432 class, ended last Sunday at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt Regency.
Representatives from about 36 schools and universities, mostly from the west coast, "mock debated" issues ranging from human and social development to rapid growth in global population and deforestation. Each of the subjects were similar to those found in actual United Nation debates.
"We are witnessing history at this point and we, as students, should be honored that we were allowed to participate in such a pivotal event," said international relations junior and the conference's president of the General Assembly, George Santos Colorado. Santos Colorado characterized the five-day event as "one of the most enlightening experiences of his life," but said he was extremely exhausted at the close of Saturday's committee meetings.
Santos Colorado and 29 fellow classmates, chosen to host the conference, have spent the last eight months preparing for it in their IR 432 class.
Normally a model U.N. club during the fall semester and a three unit class during the spring, this year's IR 432 class, devoted to preparing students for the conference, earned participants four units.
International relations advisor JoAnn Aviel worked closely with the students to host the conference, but without the help of the conference's "ringleader" Alexandra Pereira (acting as secretary general), things might not have run as smoothly.
By the third day of the conference, Pereira, a senior studying international relations, had tears in her eyes from the pressure of hosting the event.
Pereira was thrust into mediating a problem that arose between the delegates of Sudan, represented by CSU Long Beach, and the delegates of Egypt, represented by the University of Washington.
The outcome, dependent on the decision of SF State hosts, might have seen Egypt pulled from the remainder of the conference.
An anonymous flyer entitled "Chill Out," advised participating students that "the purpose of the conference is to learn something, but it is also to have a good time." The hosts from SF State did just that, they enjoyed themselves.
They got to meet Douglas J. Bennet, assistant secretary for International Organization Affairs, and have a few beers in Hyatt's bar on Saturday evening with Manfred Noetzel, the U.N.'s special representative of the secretary general for public affairs.
"To be able to put together the conference over the last year, and finally meet all of these people that I have been working with from different schools is what made it special," said the conference's International Committee of Justice Chair Kristina Moffitt, a junior at SF State.
Because SF State served as the conference host, they were unable to represent a country.
The last time SF State hosted a conference was in 1955.
"We cannot state our views, and must wear a neutral hat," said MOUN's General Assembly Legal Officer Jonathan Fortun, a senior at SF State.
Senior Chris Cargill, who was attending and hosting the conference for his first and last time said, "I didn't know how the structure of the U.N. works -- and it is really an important thing to know for an international relations major because it is a somewhat integral part as to how the whole world works."
This year marks the U.N.'s 50th anniversary, and as Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in his statement to the U.N., it "coincides with a turning point in history when the institutions of international relations are being re-thought and re-considered."