What is a Model United Nations at Baylor?

Welcome to the Model United Nations organization at Baylor University! The Baylor University Model United Nations program originated in the early 1960s, when it participated in collegiate conferences around Texas. The team has traveled to national conferences every year since 1989 and has hosted an annual high school conference since 1994. Today, the Baylor Model UN team participates in at least three collegiate conferences each year -- two national and one regional. Check out the “In the News” tab for more information about our recent conferences, and visit the “High School Conference” tab to learn more about the annual conference and to register your team.

Model United Nations provides students with the opportunity to develop solutions to today's international problems. Each semester our team represents a different Member State in the United Nations and researches its policies, including its positions on international security, economic development, sustainability, and social-humanitarian efforts. At Model UN conferences, students act as diplomats for their assigned nation within a particular UN committee. The goal of these conferences is to foster diplomacy and cooperation as students write resolutions and reports, just as Member States in the UN do. While the educational experience is the true reward of any Model UN event, at many conferences awards are given to teams and individual students who excel at adhering to the constraints of domestic and international politics, public speaking, and leadership within their committee.

Model UN members hone professional skills that will help them to succeed both as a student and in their post-graduate professions:

Teamwork and leadership

• Model United Nations teaches students the value of both teamwork and compromise.
• Students must work together in order to come to a solution that the international community will accept.
• Delegates will learn how to compromise between an ideal solution and a practical one.
• Our conference works to foster the interpersonal skills of each student.
• Delegates develop leadership abilities and organizational skills.

Communication

• Model UN members practice effective and persuasive public speaking techniques for groups of 3-300 people and in formal and informal settings.
• Model UN teaches students to think quickly and decisively.
• Model UN delegates learn to read and write documents in the correct international format, defined by the UN.

Cultural education across all disciplines

• Model UN teaches students about cultures that they may have little exposure to otherwise.
• Baylor MUN strives to represent a different Member State each semester. Our goal is that students who join as freshmen will have learned about eight different member states from multiple regions by the time they graduate.
• Model UN is an excellent opportunity for students of all majors. Our team consists not only of Political Science and International Studies majors, but also students who study Biology, Economics, Journalism, Neuroscience, and Psychology, to name a few. In a given year, we will study numerous topics related to international economics, journalism, infectious diseases, environmental sustainability, and humanitarian relief.