On January 31, 500 delegates from 30 schools around the Chicagoland area participated in Parker’s tenth annual student-run Model United Nations conference, FWPMUN X. 

Though FWPMUN is a single-day event, the conference takes months to prepare and plan. FWPMUN is a club in the Upper School with  around 100 students who participate and take on the roles of head chairs and assistant chairs. During the conference, the chairs run a committee, which is a group of delegates who  represent countries or people and debate about specific topics. The day before the conference, the FWPMUN chairs set up their committee rooms, bringing in desks, pens, notepads, and decorations to make their committees come to life for their delegates. The chairs work to create a memorable conference that delegates from schools like St. Ignatius, Carl Sandburg, and Walter Payton.

The head chairs and assistant chairs are the foundation of the conference, but Secretary-General and senior Nia Nashashibi is the one who puts it all together. “I’ve always wanted to be in this position,” Nashashibi said. She has been involved in FWPMUN for four years. “It was really fun to handle registration and everything,” Nashashibi said. “It gave me a lot of experience on things like organization and how to handle all of that. I also loved to teach assistant chairs how to run their committees.”

This year was one of the biggest conferences in the history of FWPMUN, so there was a lot more planning to do. “The hardest thing I had to manage was registration and giving all the schools and their delegates each position,” Nashashibi said. “Schools kept dropping delegates or adding delegates and we had a hundred people in the club this year, so it’s really hard to manage all of those people as well.” 

Nashashibi had Director-General and senior Spencer Koh by her side. “The most challenging [part] was probably making sure we do registration right,” Koh said. The shifting numbers of delegates this year made this complicated. “With schools dropping positions, we had to fill those positions back up, so we had to reach out to schools to see if they wanted the additional positions.”

Even with the challenges presented, both Nashashibi and Koh emphasized how meaningful their experience was. “It was a lot of work but I would say it was also very rewarding,” Koh said. “It prepared me for my future more than anything else I have been a part of. You have to coordinate with so many schools and students and while it takes up a lot of time, it’s helped me get a lot better at my personal organization.” 

The conference day started at 8:00 a.m. with the delegate arrival and check in. After everyone was checked in, Nashashibi took the stage to give her speech as Secretary-General. After Nashashibi gave her thanks to her secretary and those involved in the preparation of FWPMUN, she introduced this year’s keynote speaker, Tamar Newberger. Newberger is a computer scientist, civic leader, and advocate for refugees, education, and women in STEM. Newberger shared the story of her life, how she got into the position of Chicago’s Head of International Affairs, the process for refugees coming to America, and the struggles that come with it today. She called for all the delegates present to participate in advocating for refugees and to fight for what they believe in, especially in today’s political climate. 

After Newberger’s speech, Nashashibi called all the head chairs to the stage to lead their delegates to their committee rooms. With posters that they made, the head chairs started the day that they had all been working towards. While the head chairs gathered all their delegates, the assistant chairs went to their committee rooms to prepare for the debate ahead.

For the leaders of FWPMUN, seeing all the committees finally come to life was gratifying. “The actual conference was the best part,” Nashashibi said, “and it was really fun to see all your hard work pay off in the end.” Koh made a similar statement.“Once the conference starts, it was fun to see everything happening,” he said, “and to see everyone who’s putting in all of this work actually take the reins of their committee.” 

Throughout the day the delegates passed resolutions for problems that their committee had to face, created alliances, started trials, and voted on motions. Halfway through the conference, the delegates left their committees for lunch, giving them the opportunity to meet new people from different schools and talk about the day in the cafeteria. During this time, the chairs ate lunch together in their committee rooms and picked who they wanted to give their awards to for the closing ceremony. After lunch, the committees came back together for the second and last session.

After the committees adjourned, the chairs and delegates assembled in the auditorium for the closing ceremony. There every committee awards best delegates, outstanding delegates, and honorable mentions. As each delegate was called up to the stage for their award, the sounds of the delegate’s school cheering filled the auditorium. At the end of the ceremony, Saint Ignatius received the award for best delegation, and the award was followed by the screaming and chants of their delegates celebrating all the work they put into FWPMUN.

From the debates to the gavel hitting the table, the hard work of each student in the club paid off, giving delegations a successful conference.