Weeks Where Decades Happen: Lessons from a Historical Committee at ASU’s 2023 Model UN Summit (SunMUN 2023)

ASU’s 14th annual SunMUN Model United Nations conference concluded on November 18th, 2023. With a record turnout of over 250 delegates from high schools across the Valley, and guest speaking appearances from the likes of Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, this conference was a milestone in ASU Model UN history. 

What made the conference such a success? Aside from the record attendance, it was the introduction of our brand new Special Committees that made this conference one to remember. As a head chair with ASU Model United Nations, I had the privilege of designing and leading an experimental Historical Committee set amidst the turmoil of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

In this retrospective, I’ll recount my experience designing this unique committee, as well as share the lessons I learned about the power of simulation to make history immersive, educational, and memorable.

What is Model United Nations?

Before we dive in, let’s take a step back. What is Model United Nations?

Model United Nations, often shortened to Model UN or simply MUN, is a style of educational simulation that teaches students about the world of diplomacy and international relations. It has its origins at the University level in the time of the League of Nations: it was introduced in US high schools in the 1950s, and is now practised around the world. In a classic Model UN committee, students navigate complex global issues as delegates in various United Nations committees, such as the General Assembly and the Security Council. 

Prior to convening, MUN delegates first showcase their research skills by drafting a Position Paper for their nation. In committee, delegates exhibit their quick thinking and diplomatic composure as they argue, negotiate and compromise to pass a joint Resolution, which represents their particular country’s interests as fully as possible. In all, Model UN challenges participants on a multitude of levels, honing writing, speaking, and negotiation skills essential for tomorrow’s leaders.

In recent years, Model UN has expanded to include a variety of Special Committees beyond the standard UN paradigm. Historical committees, such as the one I chaired, transport delegates to the past to represent historical figures grappling with pivotal moments in history. Many Special Committees make use of an unconventional format known as Crisis. In Crisis-style committees, every decision carries immediate consequences as delegates navigate tumultuous historical events in real time. 

As a longtime lover of the Special Committee experience, I jumped at the chance to chair a Historical Committee at ASU SunMUN 2023. Join me as I unpack my process of designing and facilitating a simulation that was immersive, challenging, and rewarding.

Designing a Special Committee: Selecting a Setting and Topic

The most quintessential, yet overlooked, part of running a Special Committee is designing the committee itself. It all starts with choosing the right setting and topic—a task that’s more nuanced than it seems.

In my experience, not every historical event makes for an engaging academic simulation. It’s often a delicate balance to find a setting that is both interesting and educationally valuable.

So, what factors go into choosing a Special Committee setting? Here’s what I like to keep in mind:

Specificity. A Special Committee should be limited in scope and topic. For instance, instead of “The Cold War” (1945-1991) as a topic, it would be better to use “The Cuban Missile Crisis” (October 16-29, 1962).  A specific topic gives the committee direction, and encourages deeper research. 

This also includes setting a clear start date to anchor the committee in history. Delegates shouldn’t be using information from the “future.”  

However, keep in mind that the topic should not be too specific, or it leaves the delegates with little flexibility. Historical events where most of the committee’s actions would be spent on minutiae—redrawing borders, moving troops, etc—often get boring quickly. For example, “The Eastern Front of WW2” leaves little flexibility for committee decisions other than war actions, while “The Prague Spring” (January-August 1968) has a focal point, but room to branch off and attack the problem in unique ways.

Balance and breadth of viewpoints. Successful Special Committees are set amidst complex political contexts. To reflect this, the committee should include a colorful sampling of figures who represent the most significant currents of political thought during this time period.

It is important to balance this with historical accuracy. Delegates will naturally try to form blocs with those who share similar policy priorities. Avoid giving one bloc such overwhelming representation that they drown out the other voices, but if a certain bloc held most of the political influence during this time period, it’s natural that they should have a numbers advantage. This helps avoid a radical faction dominating the committee and divorcing too radically from history. 

For example, consider a committee about “The American Revolutionary Period.” Such a committee would balance the biggest political perspectives of the time, such as northern vs southern, commercialism vs agrarianism, and centralism vs confederalism. This sets the stage for a healthy debate. By contrast, a topic featuring the American government in “The Korean War” may not be as interesting, since the American government was largely united in its stance on the conflict.

Uniqueness. This point is subjective, but I find that the best committee topics are ones that explore lesser-known events that challenge delegates’ research skills. Well-trodden topics such as “The American Civil War” or “World War II” may have broad appeal, but a less discussed topic such as “The Peace of Westphalia” will likely result in a more challenging and memorable experience. 

Format Appropriateness. Not all topics fit neatly into every committee format. Consider whether your topic is best suited for a Non-Crisis or Crisis committee.

In my experience, closed-door meetings or summits like “The Congress of Vienna” or “The Paris Peace Conference” lend themselves best to a Non-Crisis format. As conventions where representatives came together to hammer out deliverable documents, it transitions perfectly to a MUN setting where the goal is to pass a resolution.

By contrast, broader events often work best as Crisis Committees. For instance, “The Boxer Rebellion” or “The Prague Spring” are events where many problems can crop up during the course of the committee and be dealt with in turn. The committee can represent an adaptable governing body such as the Qing Court or the U.S.S.R. Politburo without being expected to produce a single deliverable law or treaty.

Our Special Committee: The 1917  First All-Russian Congress of Soviets

After careful consideration and collaboration with my peers, we settled on "The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets" as our committee topic. This pivotal moment in Russian history, often overlooked in high school curricula, offered a perfect blend of political complexity and educational value.

The brief period between the Russian revolutions of March and November 1917 are usually glossed over in high school history curricula in favor of skipping straight to early Soviet history. This gives many students the impression that the outcome of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik victory in the Civil War was somehow a foregone conclusion, when in reality it was anything but. As the apocryphal quote from Vladimir Lenin goes, “there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” The six months of the inter-revolutionary period was one such tumultuous time, where anything was possible. Russia had gone in an instant from unbroken centuries of tsarist rule to a clean slate, and everyone in the ideologically diverse Russian political landscape had their own vision for how the future should look. 

As a Non-Crisis committee, I decided to choose a particular historical meeting to encapsulate the turbulent political dynamic of the period. The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets was a perfect choice—as the first ever event to unite workers’ councils from across all of Russia, the First Congress of Soviets was a battleground for bitter ideological struggles between the moderate Mensheviks and SRs, and the radical Bolsheviks. There was also belief in the potential of the Congress to assert itself as the new de facto government of Russia, giving delegates boundless flexibility.

After extensive research, I crafted a research brief to prepare delegates for the committee, which can be read here:SunMUN 2023 Historical Committee Short Research Guide.

The First Congress of Soviets promised a unique and intriguing setting for a historical simulation, and I was confident that it would prove a memorable experience for delegates. However, there was still much work to be done in refining the committee’s details before I was ready to host delegates. The next part of this journey is detailed in a follow-up article here on the Melikian Center Blog.

Weeks Where Decades Happen: Lessons from a Historical Committee at ASU’s 2023 Model UN Summit (SunMUN 2023)

In my last article, I outline the process I used to select a topic for ASU SunMUN’s Special Historical Committee 2023. The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets is an important but lesser-known event in history, where socialists from across revolutionary Russia met to decide their nation’s future.

However, a good historical simulation is more than an interesting topic. It also takes a meticulous approach to outlining structure and execution. In this article, I’ll walk through my process designing and running this committee.

Designing a Special Committee: Outlining Committee Format

By immersing students in this setting, I hoped to give them a newfound understanding of how uncertain history really is; without the benefit of hindsight, they could experience all of the small decisions and crises that piled up to cause events with world-changing ramifications. 

To achieve this, I wanted to tailor the committee’s format to be different from what a typical committee looks like.

This is the usual flow of a conventional Non-Crisis MUN committee:

1. Rolling Speakers’ List: Delegates take turns making short speeches before the whole body, presenting their stances and proposing solutions. After each speech, the whole body has the opportunity to pose questions or offer comments.
    
2. Unmoderated Caucuses (Unmods): After enough speeches have passed, the committee will begin convening short unmoderated caucuses. These “unmods” allow delegates to mingle freely, forming blocs and collaborating on drafting resolutions.
    
3. Alternating Period: Once delegates have formed blocs and begun drafting resolutions, committee will typically alternate between speakers and unmods until the resolutions have been fully drafted.
    
4. Voting: After resolutions have been finished, each bloc will present their resolutions to the body for amendment and discussion. The body then moves into voting bloc where delegates vote to adopt the resolutions.

While this conventional format certainly has its merits, I wanted to modify it to better fit the immersive, dynamic vision I had in mind. Specifically, I decided to incorporate some elements of the Crisis committee format. 

I was mainly concerned with the use of a traditional speakers’ list. In a conventional committee, the speakers’ list is usually the most important form of whole-body debate. However, speeches tend to lose their relevance as the committee progresses, as after initial introductions, delegates already develop an understanding of each others’ positions. 
 

Inserting “crisis events” into the non-crisis format: Benefits and challenges

To prevent this important element from getting stale, I decided to incorporate an element from Crisis formats called the crisis event. A crisis event is an announcement that updates delegates on the state of a crisis situation unfolding in real time, which the committee must deal with. The delegates can interact with the situation dynamically by passing resolutions as a whole committee. If crisis updates were interspersed into the debate, delegates would always have a new development to discuss and debate via the speakers’ list. The addition of a dynamic real-time situation to manage would also lend the committee the sense of historical immersion I was seeking.

However, the inclusion of real time crisis events necessitated a way for delegates to debate quickly as a whole body in order to coordinate an urgent response. For this purpose, I decided to emphasize a little-used committee procedure called the moderated caucus. In a moderated caucus, the whole body engages in a rapid-fire and inclusive debate as delegates stand to speak for less than 30 seconds each. This would also allow me as the chair to better gauge delegates’ rhetoric than the hands-off unmoderated caucus, or unmod, would.

This “semi-crisis” format, however, would lack the dedicated backroom staff that design crisis events for full Crisis committees. To overcome this, I took on the role of a proactive chair, ready to draft crisis events tailored to delegates’ actions. In my research, I found a wealth of real-world events that coincided with the Congress of Soviets, many of which forced the Congress to react immediately. These events included: riots from anarchist militias in the streets of Petrograd; anti-war demonstrations from Bolshevik sympathizers; dissent among soldiers on the front; politically inflammatory actions from the Provisional Government; and a declaration of autonomy from the Ukrainian socialists (an event with highly relevant implications in our modern day). I prepared outlines for how these might be used in committee, leaving room to retool based on how delegates responded.

Designing a Special Committee: Crafting a Character Roster

The last step in designing my committee was to finalize the characters that delegates would represent. While this may seem straightforward, it is a significant piece of setting up the most ideal committee dynamic. I considered several key factors. 

1. Voting Balance: It’s essential to avoid the formation of an overly dominant voting bloc. While historicity is important, sometimes minority voices should be elevated in order to create a more compelling debate. In my committee, this meant striking an almost 50/50 mix of radical Bolsheviks and moderate SR/Mensheviks, even though in real life the moderate bloc dwarfed the Bolshevik delegation.
    
2. Character Purpose: Every included figure should have a reason to be there, and a unique perspective. All of the important stakeholder groups during this time period should have a character representing them in the committee. For example, I wanted representatives to embody both the revolutionary rank-and-file soldiers of the military, as well as the reactionary officer corps. To represent the former, I included Bolshevik soldier-chairmen Nikolai Krylenko and Pavel Dybenko; to represent the latter, I included the chauvinist commissar Boris Savinkov. 
   
   From the delegate’s perspective, it’s a difficult experience to be tasked with representing a character who has nothing unique to bring to the table. Every historical figure should have a purpose for being included. If the figure seems like a filler or token inclusion to the committee designer, chances are that the delegate will be bored with the selection as well. 
    

3. Balancing Major and Minor Historical Figures: Major historical figures who had sweeping impacts on their time can and should be included. However, this comes with a few extra considerations. 

    

   Firstly, all delegates in the committee should nominally have the same “power.” Adding a president into the same committee as the rest of their cabinet, for instance, creates a power imbalance and isn’t fair to delegates who represent lesser-known or less powerful figures. I included many socialist politicians who were serving as ministers in the government at the time; but since this was a Soviet meeting, no one had access to governmental authority. This leveled the playing field as everyone could only act as a delegate with equal footing.

    

   Secondly, committees shouldn’t be designed around any particular characters. Delegates often drop out before the committee starts, or can end up being soft-spoken or incompetent. The committee should be designed so that it can be a rewarding experience regardless of the absence of any historical figure. Though I included major figures such as Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Kerensky, I was careful not to make crisis events hinge on their delegates behaving in a particular way.
    

As many of the historical figures who participated in the First Congress of Soviets were relatively obscure, I made a final choice to assign double-delegates—meaning that each character would be represented by a pair of delegates. This ensured collaboration and thorough preparation.

With that, the committee designing process was complete. The only thing left was to experience how these design choices played out in the heat of committee debates.

Running the Committee

As day 1 of the committee opened on Topic 1, “Revolutionary Democracy and Government Power,” I was pleasantly surprised at how prepared our high school delegates were with such an unfamiliar topic. Many delegates later shared that the unfamiliar topic choice motivated them to do more research in order to prepare. This was evident in their speeches, which were insightful and reflected a good understanding of the historical context. 

To maintain momentum and inject a dynamic element into the proceedings, I introduced the first crisis event—a declaration of autonomy by the Ukrainian Rada. This unexpected update saw an immediate uptick of energy, as the tangentially-related topic challenged delegates to formulate a political response on the fly. Delegates moved into a moderated caucus for a fast-paced debate before drafting a concise resolution to address the issue. After they passed their resolution, the follow-up crisis update gave them a sense of accomplishment as they saw the effects of their work in action.

However, as with any historical simulation, the committee faced the challenge of ensuring delegates acted in a historical manner, rather than being guided by hindsight.

When it came to Topic 1, “Revolutionary Democracy and Government Power,” delegates were initially very policy-accurate. The moderate delegates who made up the majority took pro-government, pro-order stances. To my surprise however, when these delegates were faced with crisis updates about public unrest, they overcorrected. An update about an armed mob of anarchists in the streets of Petrograd shocked otherwise moderate delegates to bow to the whims of the radical bloc and sympathize with the rioters. In reality of course, the moderate socialists at the Congress of Soviets supported a crackdown and ordered the mob to stand down. 

In retrospect, I recognize the importance of introducing tangible counterbalancing threats to guide delegates toward more nuanced decision-making. The delegates were tasked with balancing the needs of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but the tangible threat of a rebellious working class scared them into taking the path of least resistance to make the issue disappear. By contrast, the counterbalance threat from the bourgeoisie side—that of the liberals severing political ties with the socialists—was nebulous and lacked urgency. I think this problem could have been solved with the inclusion of a more tangible counterbalance threat from the bourgeoisie side, such as a military coup or economic disaster. 

The second day of the committee opened on Topic 2, “The Attitude Toward the Great War.” Once again, delegates representing moderate or conservative characters initially took a strong pro-war stance, successfully passing a resolution to end soldier democracy in the army. However, once again, they were convinced to back down and switch to a pro-peace policy when they saw a crisis update about the negative response their policy had among soldiers.

I applied the lesson from the previous day and worked to create crisis events with stronger counterbalancing consequences. When the delegates made anti-war statements, I had the liberal politicians resign from the government en masse, and informed them that discipline in the army had completely collapsed. I also let them know the Central Powers’ peace demands, pulled straight from the historical treaty of Brest-Litovsk: Germany demanded all of Russia’s territory in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as most of Belarus and Ukraine. I put the demands in stark perspective for them, revealing that the peace would cost 34% of their population, 54% of their industrial land, 89% of their coalfields, and 26% of their railways. 

Faced with these consequences, moderate and conservative delegates were encouraged to take more balanced decisions as the political need for a military offensive became more tangible. They resumed their historical stance and the debate regained its nuance.

Throughout the committee sessions, I strived to maintain a balance between allowing delegates the freedom to shape the debate organically, and gently guiding them back on course when necessary. While chairs should allow their committees to surprise them, it’s also a chair’s responsibility to tell when the committee is veering too far off course. By being conscious of this, chairs can ensure the debate remains fulfilling and academically valuable for everyone involved. 

I presented the committee’s Crisis Updates via a slideshow presentation, accessible here:

Crisis Updates - Historical Committee

Conclusion

In reflection, the feedback from delegates was overwhelmingly positive, with many sharing that this had been one of the most engaging and unique committees they had participated in. They attributed this largely to the unfamiliar historical setting and the unique committee format, marked by dynamic crisis events which responded to their resolutions and gave their actions weight. For my part, I was able to apply many of the lessons from my MUN experience to an experimental committee format and come away with even more strategies for designing and running successful committees. 

Historical simulations like SunMUN’s Special Historical Committee are excellent ways to immerse students in history and give them a newfound perspective on the events that shaped our present world. I hope some of the lessons I learned from this journey can be of help to your approach toward engaging with students or peers on learning history.

Students lead the way on the road to quiz bowl’s grand event

Later this month, ACF Nationals will be held at Duke University on April 20-21, 2024. Historically, ASU has not been part of this event, but this year marks ASU's inaugural qualification.

To secure a spot at this esteemed event, university teams navigated a series of rigorous tournaments, vying for qualification alongside renowned institutions like UChicago, Cornell, and Stanford. Jaik Havlick, an Economics and Philosophy double major and alumnus of the Critical Languages Institute, provided insights into his preparation for ACF Nationals and the journey of ASU's quiz bowl team.

While also participating in ASU’s Academic Bowl, an internal ASU quiz bowl event, Jaik emphasized the significance of ACF Nationals for a quiz bowl player. “Teams play in two to ten tournaments during the course of the year, with a single qualifying tournament called ACF Regionals in January,” Jaik explained. “Winning ACF Nationals is the most you can hope to achieve for your school as a quiz bowl player.”

Through all of the activities that take place in a quiz bowl, one of the things he appreciates is its crossing of disciplinary boundaries. “Many of the nation's best quiz bowl players (including my teammate and captain Bryan Ugaz) are graduate students, but all have interests and deep knowledge in fields that they have no professional affiliation with. Bryan, for example, is a National Science Foundation scholar, PhD student in chemistry at ASU, and one of the best science quiz bowl players nationally, but also specializes in world literature for our quiz bowl team.”

Utilizing his coursework from the Critical Languages Institute's Russian program, he leveraged his language skills to excel in quiz bowl tournaments. “Linguistics is a category that comes up multiple times a day during a tournament, and a grammatically complex language like Russian gives you a great window into syntax and historical linguistic change.” He emphasized that delving into a grammatically intricate language like Russian offers valuable insights into syntax and historical linguistic shifts. “CLI puts you in contact with people studying languages of cultures from around the globe, and instructors who come from cultures you’ve only read about.”

With ACF Nationals coming up, Jaik and his teammates will also spend their time reading and expanding their knowledge. “My teammates, I know, are doing the same: Denis Liu, a senior computer science and mathematics double major, is our fine arts player and is currently reading Harold Schoenberg’s Lives of the Great Composers for the second time. Skand Parvatikar, a computer science major, is working on reading about American history and world mythology. Our captain, Bryan, is reading a different book every time I see them, so I’m not even sure what they’re doing right now, but I’m certain they’re reading something. We’re really looking forward to competing against the country’s top teams, and we’ll be going back next year, too.”

Melikian Center graduate affiliate and master’s student of Liberal Studies reports from Ukraine

Over winter break, Rob “Pyotr” Cuthbert, master’s student of Liberal Studies at ASU and a graduate affiliate of the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, & East European Studies, traveled across Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spending two weeks in Ukraine as a journalist, reporting for a podcast, “Article One with Molly Hooper.” 

Receiving press credentials from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Rob reported from Kherson and Kharkiv, both of which were around 90 minutes from Russian troops.

Rob, a former US Army ranger, a veteran of two wars, and an award-winning opinion journalist, studied Russian at the Melikian Center’s Critical Languages Institute, which hosts intensive summer language programs at ASU, in the summers of 2022 and 2023. He built on his summer experiences by taking Advanced Russian courses in the School of International Letters and Cultures.

Both programs allowed him to not only have superlative classroom instruction in Tempe, but also, for two summers in a row, engage in life-changing immersion study in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Rob stated: “In the fall of 2023, Professor Moldabekova Robb and Professor Hoogenboom provided me with the historical, political, linguistic, and analytical knowledge to report from Eastern Ukraine.”

Subsequently, Keith Brown, the Director of the Melikian Center, extended an invitation to Rob to join as a graduate affiliate, making him the exclusive affiliate through both the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts and their Master of Liberal Studies program. Rob also credits the Master of Liberal Studies program for aiding in his preparation for some of his most impactful writing experiences in Ukraine.

Reflecting on his time in Ukraine, Rob said: “I did not have the resources of a major news organization, but I had an incredible amount of support through the professors at the Melikian Center, the Critical Languages Institute, and the School of International Letters and Cultures.”

While in Kherson, Rob wrote an op-ed published in the Boston Globe, “Americans must pressure Congress to approve support for Ukraine,” that described his experience attending Christmas Eve mass in the Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Kherson, near the frontlines of the war. In the op-ed, Rob urges action: “There is no way the United States and its European allies can continue to allow Vladimir Putin and the Russian military to keep harming the children of Ukraine.”

When asked about why he decided to risk his own safety to go to Ukraine, Rob said “I am no longer a soldier, but I am a writer and journalist, and I want to help bring the truth of the war in Ukraine to the world.”

Rob also wrote a second op-ed recently published in the Chicago Tribune arguing that “the war in Ukraine demands a single-minded focus” from the United States if it wishes to curb Russian aggression.

Rob also wants to remind us that just because Arizona is geographically far from the conflict, its federal political representation has a significant impact on U.S. aid to Ukraine: “As an Arizonan and a Sun Devil, I thought it was important that I bore witness to the war.” 

Scheduled for February 9, 2024, at 4:00 PM, Rob is set to deliver a presentation titled "Freelance Reported Opinion Writing and Reflections on Reporting in Ukraine" at the Cronkite School's Current Foreign Affairs and International Reporting (CFAIR) Organization, taking place in Room 404H of the Cronkite Building.