Meet the Under Secretary General for Committees
Among the engineers behind YMUN Korea
2014 is the Under Secretary General for Committees, Miranda Melcher, who is
currently a sophomore in Branford College at Yale University and an all-time
devotee to the field of Model United Nations. Her title may be unfamiliar to
many delegates in Korea who are accustomed to the THIMUN system, as it does not
usually provide the positions of Under Secretary Generals for their secretariat.
The responsibilities of the USG Committees form an extensive list; from
creating all of the ten committees to training the chairs and overseeing the
writing of the topic guides, the USG is in charge of any tasks related to the
committees at YMUN.
Taking up such an immense role at a
conference hosted by the prestigious Yale International Relations Association
(YIRA) was not an expectation that young Miranda held for herself, when she
attended her very first MUN conference as a twelve-year-old novice. She first experienced MUN at her
international school in Beijing, where resources were scarcely enough with
almost no teachers experienced in the area. “I was never even taught how to make an
opening speech,” she recalled, and understandably she
picked the first conference she had attended as her most embarrassing MUN
experience –
as it is for so many delegates. Unlike a large number of novice delegates who
quit MUN for good after a semester or so of attempting it, Miranda refused to
bend to the rather aggressive and experienced delegates in her committee. From
her second conference and on, Miranda’s strength may not have necessarily
been her charisma or her presentation skills, but her extensive research was
unmatched by that of any other delegates. “Even when I was lost in the middle of
my speech, the content of my research would support my point.”
As a high school student Miranda took
on the initiative of founding her own middle school MUN conference of the name
DIMUN, which held its fourth conference in January 2014. Seeing that only a
handful of students had been able to attend an international MUN conference in
Malaysia, Miranda decided to bring the enriching experience closer for her
peers who enjoyed MUN. A young student herself at the time, Miranda recollects
that she truly felt electrified with joy and fulfillment when the conference
that she designed from scratch smoothly completed its first annual forum.
When asked what motivates her to
accomplish so much, Miranda spoke of her faith in our generation’s ability
to bring about tangible changes in the world. “Adults
look down on teenagers too much,” she shared,
"they think that high school MUNs are merely for
simulations”.
But it is Miranda’s personal conviction that the
contrary can be observed at these conferences. “If
someone already created the answer for you, that would just be history.”
The
issues that YMUN Korea and all other MUN conferences pose to the young
delegates are ongoing ones that even the most seasoned diplomats and
politicians around the world continue to grapple with. Miranda explains, “It through confronting these
challenging issues that the young people of the world may prove themselves to
be ingenious thinkers, devising solutions that no one had imagined before. I
hope that YMUN Korea 2014 provides such a platform for the brightest youths to
do so.”
by Seoyoon Choi
by Seoyoon Choi
