Rider University’s Model United Nations Team received an Outstanding Delegation award at the conclusion of the National Model United Nations Conference, held from March 18 to 21 inside the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

Representing the Syrian Arab Republic, the Rider team was one of 16 delegations at the conference to receive this prestigious award, which is the highest honor a team can receive. The Rider team competed against 290 delegations from national and international universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, Cambridge University, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Universidad Central de Venezuela.

“I didn’t earn this award. The team earned this award,” said
co-team leader Jesse Forsythe, a senior Political Science major. “It’s a team effort. If there was one weak link in the chain, than we wouldn’t have been successful.”

As team co-leaders, Forsythe and Mike Segal, also a senior Political Science major, both agreed that they couldn’t have selected a more talented team. At the beginning of the fall semester Forsythe, Segal and co-leader Anthony Coruccini, a Master of Accountancy candidate, looked for motivated students from various majors that could work well in a team.

“We found a great team this year,” Segal said. “Everyone we had on the team was motivated to go.”

The Rider team not only competed, but members were visible leaders within their designated committees, explained Forsythe and Segal. There was Rider representation on several committees, including the General Assemblies, International Atomic Energy Agency, U.N. Environment Programme and U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. In fact, a student from California State University, Chico, who was representing Saudi Arabia, approached Forsythe and to tell him that the Rider team was a “powerhouse at the conference.”

The majority of the members were new to the Rider team, but they came prepared and trained extensively. In fact, the leaders couldn’t even calculate their hours spent preparing for the conference. While the team met regularly as an evening class (POL 295 Special Project: National Model United Nations) for three hours each week this semester, the team started working in the fall semester and committees met outside of class time.

 “That’s what made us an amazing team. We gave so much of our own time,” Segal said.

While Dr. Barbara Franz is the team’s adviser, it’s the team leaders that teach the rest of the team, she said. Training during the class emphasizes mastery of the rules of procedure; being in character when representing one's assigned country; professional conduct; creative diplomacy in caucusing and drafting working papers/resolutions; and teamwork. But it’s up to the individual committee to research their three topics on their own time.

While the team requested to represent the Syrian Arab Republic, it proved to be a challenging country to research because its Web sites are in Arabic and the resolutions, sponsored by the country, were limited, explained Segal. Broad knowledge of a team’s designated country is pivotal because team members must remain in character as delegates in order to be successful during committee meetings. The team did get some insight during the conference when they met with an actual Syrian Arab Republic delegate. By taking initiative, working as a team and promoting diplomacy, each member pulled his or her own weight, which allowed the team to perform successfully at the conference.

Team co-leaders: Jesse Forsythe, Mike Segal, and Anthony Coruccini

The rest of the 2008 team included: 

• Jonathan Chebra, junior Political Science major;
  
• Uchenna Duru, senior Human Resource Management major;
  
• Susan Campbell, junior Global and Multinational Studies, Political Science and French major;
  
• Aqua Etuk, senior History major;
  
• Zarif Islam, sophomore Global and Multinational Studies major;
  
• Alice Jacques, senior French and Global and Multinational Studies major;
  
• Kathryn Kidell, senior Political Science major;
  
• Jenny Melander, senior Elementary Education and Psychology major;
  
• Loretta Mistura, junior Political Science major; and
  
• Taysiah Varnie, junior Political Science major.

Now in its 41st year, Rider’s Model U.N. Team gives students a chance to experience how the U.N. handles and resolves world problems and issues. Forsythe and Segal encourage all majors to join the team because a range of backgrounds is needed to make future teams successful. Campbell, Chebra and Islam were recently selected as the new leaders for next year’s team.