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A newsletter for the students, faculty and staff of the Collin College. Published monthly. For information or submissions, call 972.599.3142. Cougar News welcomes student and faculty submissions. Next deadline: July 10 All submissions are due by 5 p.m. on the due date. Photos cannot be returned. Text should be emailed to mrobinson@ccccd.edu or sent on disk. Please submit copy that is proofed, edited and saved in Word format. Cougar News staff: Lisa Vasquez, director; Mark Robinson, editor; Marcy Cadena-Smith, contributor; Dana Schmitz, contributor; Sydney Portilla-Diggs, campus correspondent; Stephanie Hall, student correspondent; Nick Young, photographer and layout.
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Model UN offers students a unique perspective on world politics
By Stephanie Hall
Student Correspondent
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| The 2006 Model United Nations group represented Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in competition. |
Collin College offers students a unique perspective on world politics with an introduction to politics class that is heavily integrated with the well-known Model United Nations program. This particular Government 2304 course is offered only during the fall semester at the Preston Ridge Campus.
“We’re still going into political science, so that aspect is not lost, but it’s all done through this focus of the Model UN,” said Dr. Dierdre L. Wendel, a professor of political science and the facilitator of the Collin College Model UN.
The Model UN is a way for college students to gain knowledge about international politics. Each school selects a certain country to represent, and this fall, Collin College’s Model UN students will represent Saudi Arabia, so the students who enroll in this particular course will get to research and learn everything there is to know about Saudi Arabia.
“I’m so excited about being Saudi Arabia,” said Wendel. “We have to be allies with the United States, but we’re this gross human rights violator, and we have to incorporate all the culture, politics and experiences of living in Saudi Arabia.”
At the end of the fall semester, the students enrolled in this course will travel to Chicago to attend the American Model United Nations International Collegiate Conference, which is the gathering of more than 100 colleges and universities including Drake University and the University of Arizona.
“The students will act like UN representatives from this country as it relates to the other countries in the Middle East, the UN and the United States,” she said. “It’s a really complicated, interesting political climate to try to emulate.”
In the previous years, the Collin College Model UN emulated Canada, Yemen and Bosnia, said Wendel. The way the Model United Nations works is that at the very beginning of the semester, the students get assigned to one of the committees that the simulation will be utilizing from the UN.
“The United Nations has at least 60 actual standing committees that range on a variety of topics from human trafficking to trade and the environment and things like that,” said Wendel.
The student model UN chooses a handful of those committees, and the students who are assigned to those committees must learn everything about the topic.
“For instance, if one of my students is on a committee on energy, then that student will research everything possible about international law regarding energy, about Saudi Arabia’s participation in the world on this topic, and their economy as it surrounds oil,” said Wendel. “They also research everything about their relationships with other countries so that when they get to the UN simulation, they are fighting for resolutions for international laws that reflect Saudi Arabia’s position.”
Aside from being on a Model UN committee, one student will have a chance to be assigned as an international press delegate. This person will act as a reporter during the simulation in Chicago during the conference.
“Throughout the semester, I will lead them through exercises on how to report on different committees, so when he or she gets to the conference they will be a part of the press delegation,” said Wendel. “The press delegation will put out a newspaper every day. The girl who did it last year just loved it.”
There is also the international court of justice, and the student assigned to do that will research three international cases, said Wendel.
“The in-class curriculum is pretty self-directed, and it can be very overwhelming at the very beginning of the process because students don’t get a textbook; instead, they get a manual on the United Nations, but that only tells about the committees. Everything the student learns is through research and in-class presentations,” she said. “They have to just dive in and do the research.”
Along with research, the students learn how to write and give speeches. “We are planning on bringing in a professor of speech to teach the students speaking techniques,” she said. The students involved with this course will also learn how to negotiate and write resolutions.
“We practice on how to build coalitions and convince people to come to our side on different topics,” she said. “By the end of the semester, the students are exhausted, but they feel very accomplished.”
For more information, contact Wendel at dwendel@ccccd.edu or call her at 972.377.1631.
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