BarMUN Conference Held at Pardee
The eighth annual Boston Area Model United Nations (BarMUN VIII) conference was held Oct. 8 – 11 in Boston, at locations including facilities provided by the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.
“Each year, BarMUN prides itself on providing a unique and individual crisis experience. We are committed to running crisis committees with quality debate and innovative crises to ensure that every delegate has a wonderful BarMUN experience tailored to their strengths,” said Sathvika Ramachandran, BarMUN VIII’s Secretary-General and Pardee School student, in a letter on the conference. “This year’s theme is A World Apart. With our world continuously shifting and becoming more and more polarized, our committees represent what it means to truly be apart, whether ideologically or geographically.”
BarMUN VIII is the collegiate conference hosted each October by Boston University’s International Affairs Association (BUIAA). BUIAA is an academic society focused on bringing a global perspective to the social sciences. They are the publishing organization for the IR Review and a number of different Boston University international affairs activities.
This year, BarMUN hosted over 30 highly ranked colleges and universities and had over 300 delegates compete, making this the most massive BarMUN in the history of BUIAA. Additionally, for the first time in its history BarMUN was proud to call itself an international conference.
The committees simulated were on two tracks, Historical and Modern, and included a diverse range of topics like the Sri Lankan Civil War, the Congolese Crisis of the 1960s, and the current transitional government of Burkina Faso.
The conference’s keynote address was provided by Amb. Mary Beth Leonard, U. S. Ambassador to the Republic of Mali.
Awards at the conference were presented to:
- Best Small Delegation: New York University
- Outstanding Small Delegation: Florida State University
- Best Large Delegation: Georgetown University
- Outstanding Large Delegation: Michigan State University
The Pardee School hosted the Ad Hoc of the Secretary General committee, which is the exclusive committee for the best and brightest delegates on the collegiate Model United Nations circuit. This year, the topic of the Ad Hoc of the Secretary General was the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla insurgent organization in Peru. More photos and a message of gratitude to the Pardee School can be found on their Facebook page.