Hostages were kidnapped in Northwestern University’s Norris University Center on Sunday, and United Nations delegates worked all afternoon to release them.
But don’t worry – none of it was real. It was all part of the fourth annual Northwestern University Model United Nations Conference for Secondary Schools, where more than 400 high school students debated and tried to solve world issues with the guidance of NU students.
Even though the conference rivaled the school’s massive Dance Marathon in size, it still went unnoticed by many undergraduates, said McCormick senior Andrew Mostello, the conference’s secretary general – the chief administrator of the event.
“Instead of being a campus event, we’re an event for high schoolers all across the country,” he said.
The conference, which was held in Norris and the McCormick Tribune Center, sold out most of the hotels in Evanston, Mostello said.
“We’re very well regarded as a conference,” he said. “We have a pretty high retention rate. Something like 75 percent of the schools who come once come back.”
The group offers high school students a chance to play the role of delegates to the United Nations. Delegates were assigned to committees to debate hypothetical situations that real members of the United Nations might face.
High schoolers taken hostage on Sunday were quarantined in a separate room in Norris while committee members received ransom notes and demands from faux terrorists.
“(Participants) get really into it,” said Medill senior and former Daily staffer Katie O’Reilly, who interviewed delegates for the conference newsletter. They forget that they are just high school kids who take a yellow bus to school and don’t have a say in world affairs.
Although the conference gives plaques to the best delegates in each committee, Mostello said the award is not necessarily given to the person who argues his or her points the best.
It’s not about having the best things to say,” he said. “It’s about being able to bring people together on an issue.”
Mostello said the conference is a great recruitment tool for NU. A number of students on the planning committee this year participated in the conference when they were in high school.
Weinberg senior Tyler Perrachione, last year’s secretary general, said a lot of work goes into the weekend.
“I think planning for this year’s conference literally started before last year’s even began,” said Perrachione, who also helped out this year.
Perrachione said the group is entirely self-funded and does not rely on any support from the university or the Student Activities Fee. Proceeds from registration for this year’s conference will help fund next year’s event, he said.
As the conference grows, it encounters obstacles and its goals change, Mostello said. He said the conference may be getting too large for the NU campus to contain.
“It’s a challenge to keep this here,” he said. “We’re stretching the limits of Evanston, but we’re doing our best to find a place to hold it here next year.”
Perrachione said he hopes money from the conference will eventually enable NU’s own Model UN team to travel to collegiate conferences across the country.
But for now, Mostello said he hopes the next conference will continue to build on this one’s successes. He said he wants to get more students around campus involved in the production while developing the conference’s prestige.
“We want it to be a conference with a national reputation that still is able to pay attention to delegates on the personal level,” he said. “That’s what we are striving for.”
