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Alumni Association "Together we aspire, together we achieve" |
Yes, Virginia, there is tradition at Rider
Letter to the Editor, The
Rider News, November 9, 2001
Dear Editor:
The Nov. 2 issue of
The Rider News made an astounding statement in its editorial: “. . .
outside academia (which in itself is a questionable area of success),
traditions of any form are lacking at Rider. . . . Although Rider was
founded in 1865, no lasting traditions have survived since then.”
Perhaps The Rider
News editorial board should make an effort to pay a little more
attention to what is going on at Rider and to be better informed before
making such a generalization. There is indeed a very proud tradition
here at Rider, and on Oct. 25, we marked its 35th year at Rider during
the United Nations Day celebration. The Rider News editorial board
should have been aware of it, as it did send a photographer and devoted
a tiny piece about it in its Oct. 26 edition. The tradition is called
the Rider Model United Nations program, which was started in the
1967-68 academic year. As Rider moved from downtown Trenton to the
Lawrenceville campus to transform itself from a business school to a
comprehensive liberal arts college, Rider’s Model UN program came into
existence just two years after that. Model UN has built a
very strong, proud and unique tradition at Rider College/University.
Unbeknownst to the
Rider community in general, and to The Rider News in particular, is the
fact that Rider has participated for the past 34 years in the National
Model United Nations (NMUN), held in NYC every spring under the
auspices of the National Collegiate Conference Association. The NMUN is the
largest and most prestigious intercollegiate academic competition in
North America. Within
the NMUN, Rider is reckoned to be one of the heavyweight participating
institutions. In
2001, the NMUN attracts more than 2,000 delegates from over 200
colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada, with
increasing participation from Europe and Japan as well.
The NMUN is not
solely an academic program. It has been and continues to be the
training ground of an ever-growing contingent of successful leaders in
business and industry, the legal profession, government and in
academia, as well as the most cohesive group of alumni supporting Rider
University. We now count about 300 NMUN alumni, among them over 50
lawyers (including Mercer County Superior Court Appointments Judge
Linda Feinberg, three members of the Burlington County Prosecutor’s
office and two in the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office), two Ph.D.s
and a slew of master’s degree holders. Long before feminism and
multiculturalism became fashionable on campus, we had women team
leaders beginning in 1971. In 2001, both of our team co-leaders were
minority women.
From its first year
in 1968 to its latest in 2001, Rider NMUN has been the most significant
co-curricular activity many participants said they have done in their
years at Rider. The appreciation shown to the Rider Model UN program
and its ongoing tradition can also be seen in the fact that it can
boast of three endowed funds, the proceeds of which pay for about half
of its annual expenses.
All traditions have
to start some time. This year, on Dec. 6, Rider NMUN will sponsor the
fourth Human Rights Day celebration on campus, with the reading of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in various languages in the lobby
of the Moore Library. In the previous three years, there has been an
increasing turnout for this event. Perhaps, with the
backing and recognition by a truly campus-conscious newspaper that
publicizes all campus events ahead of time, we can draw even more
participants this year.
Steve Sutow, ’00, 2000 Team Leader
Nargis Afzal, ’01, 2001 Team Co-Leader
Fatisha Hobbs, ’01, 2001 Team Co-Leader
Juan Nuñez, 2002 Team Leader
