Jessie Lee and Olena Vasyltsova happily share a conversation as
representatives of the Russian Federation. Under the SEOMUN theme
of “Embracing Diversity,” their Six Party Talks committee debated
about measures to resolve territorial disputes in the East China Sea.
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D D I P P L L O O M AT
A T I I C C
Syrian Arab Republic Georgia
Kuwait
Ethiopia
Venezuela
France Maldives Philippines United Kingdom Serbia
Fifteen MUN students spent months preparing for their
SEOMUN (Seoul Modern United Nations) debate topics. They
researched and wrote speeches ahead of time to debate against
their opponents on Nov. 25 to 26.
During the two days at the MUN conference, the students
were placed in different committees and debated on different
global issues. Students debated topics such as the rights of defec-
tors from DPRK, conflict in East China and the increasing interna-
tional cooperation in preventing the spread of diseases.
Mr Villarreal, MUN advisor, said, “Our
students did a great job preparing ahead of
time, contrary to previous years. A lot of our
readiness is due to the leadership from Clau-
dia Choi, our chair, who has done a great job
preparing the students for SEOMUN.”
Claudia Choi, senior, was the chair for the SEOMUN confer-
ence. She explained, her role held a lot of responsibilities, such as
controlling the flow of the debate, memorizing chairing phrases
and rules of procedure, selecting people to give speeches and
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Winter Student Life
Kazakhstan
Russian Federation
answering any questions that the delegates have. “The chairs are
given a Rules of Procedure booklet - it’s 14 pages. We memorize
it cover to cover and apply our chairing knowledge in the debate.
Also, I had to study our committee issues in depth in order to write
a seven page report on it.”
For Olena Vasyltsova, junior, SEOMUN was her first MUN
conference. She said in order to get prepared she had to write
resolution papers and prepare speeches before going into the
conference.
June Lee, junior, was the delegate of Kazakhstan and ex-
plained, she needed to research thoroughly about her topic, the
prevention of using nuclear weapons as a countermeasure, to
protect Kazakhstan from terrorists attacks during the conference.
In addition to researching, she needed to prepare resolutions for
other issues in order to contribute to the other debates in her
assembly.
SEOMUN’s theme was “Embracing Diversity”. Connecting
to the theme, the students participated in a variety of debates
about global issues regarding intolerance and inequality and work
towards resolutions for them as well.