A gavel bangs. “Decorum!” The Chair shouts over the din of a room crowded with delegates dressed in perfectly pressed suits. The murmur dies quickly. Seats are taken. The conference has begun.
Every year, over 800 hundred students from across the West Coast flock to the heart of Seattle to put their geopolitical debate skills to the test. The Pacific Model United Nations Conference lets delegates adopt the perspective of a country to vie for recognition in an imitation of the United Nations.
It’s a difficult and unique style of competition. And Liberty’s Model UN Club is fantastic at it.
“We did really, really well this year,” junior Isabella Schmitt, winner of an outstanding delegate award, said. “It was awesome.”
Schmitt performed exceptionally well, but at Liberty, she isn’t alone. Senior Alexander Munson won outstanding delegate in his own competition, and the Liberty delegation as a whole was given a prestigious award.
Delegates work hard, party hard, and PACMUN sports an impressive social scene. The delegate social, which happens late at night after the first day of competition, is always eagerly awaited.
“It’s like a better version of Homecoming,” senior Amelia Matin, co-president of MUN, said. “They have a karaoke room and get a disco going. Sometimes people crowd surf.”
Fun events like the social and team meals give the competition a broad appeal, pulling in members from all grades. Prisha Locesh, a freshman who attended PACMUN, listed the social as a tradition she was excited to participate in.
“I heard this year’s delegate social is going to be pajama themed,” Locesh said before PACMUN. “That’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Liberty MUN has built fun traditions like the delegate social, but they’ve also built a different kind of expectation: success.
Liberty MUN’s PACMUN background is littered with achievement. Two years ago, Liberty won the best delegation for its size with the most awards in its class, three students earning the highest award in their committees.
Liberty’s high scoring record at PACMUN is closely tied to the history of the conference itself.
“Several Liberty students played a huge role in starting PACMUN back when it first began,” Matin said. “But this was back when MUN was a class at Liberty.”
MUN’s golden age ended during Covid-19, and despite a resurgence during the 2022-2023 school year, the club is still recovering from the pandemic and subsequent loss in members. This year, they faced a new setback as the club’s previous advisor stepped down.
Michelle Munson, activity coordinator at Liberty, took on a role as temporary advisor. “For me, this is a chance to take a deep dive into such a unique and established club,” Munson said. “I really want to encourage the leadership team in MUN to think about their legacy.”
Munson and MUN’s student officers have focused on what they’re leaving behind.
“I ask them: do you know how you’re replacing yourself?” Munson said. “Have you been a role model? That’s your legacy.”
For officers like Amelia Matin, a lot of their legacy is built during conferences like PACMUN. The competition is run almost entirely by high schoolers for high schoolers and provides ample leadership opportunities for established members, as well as an introductory experience for new ones.
“PACMUN is a great way to get new members hooked on MUN,” Matin said. “And it’s feedback for the leadership team on how well we’ve prepared them and what we can do better.”
Setting up future generations for success is at the forefront of the club’s push for a legacy.
“We’re really working on building up competition skills for our younger members,” Matin said.
Freshmen have noticed the extra effort.
“The staff and presidents are great,” Blythe Matheny, a freshman who attended PACMUN, said. “They’ve made me feel much more comfortable debating and public speaking.”
And the work that Munson, Matin, and the club’s upperclassmen are putting into the club has created a close knit team.
“We were frantically working on our position papers all weekend,” Locesh said. “But at least we had each other for emotional support.”
“MUN is a really unique club,” Munson said. “And with such a young core group of members, we have to be asking ourselves: have we left it better than we found it?”
