Eastern hosted the 25th annual South Jersey Model United Nations (SJMUN) on Saturday, October 21st, 2023. SJMUN is the first model United Nations conference of the South Jersey season, and has been hosted by Eastern since 2000. At this conference, students take on the role of delegates representing various nations and seek to find resolutions for current issues.

   This year’s SJMUN saw record-breaking numbers in attendance, both in total number of delegates and in the number of schools said delegates came from. Over 320 students attended coming from 16 different schools. Many newcomers attended the conference, including BelovED Community Charter School, Bordentown Regional High School, Cherry Hill West, and Lenape High School. 

    The increased attendance caused for a few modifications to be made to the conference. Two committees had to be split to mitigate the large population. One committee was forced to make use of three chairs (the people who moderated the debates and discussions) rather than the traditional two. Thanks to the flexibility of Eastern’s conference managing staff, this year’s SJMUN was able to operate relatively smoothly and no committee was ruined due to enlarged attendance. 

   At each year’s SJMUN, a guest speaker gives an opening speech that touches upon the conferences’ overall theme and the skills that delegates can ascertain in their committees. This year’s speaker was the Commissioner Director of Camden County, Louis Cappelli Jr. Commissioner Director Cappelli spoke about the importance of participating in Model United Nations and the values students gain from participating. Along with this, Commissioner Director Cappelli spoke about the problems he has addressed and resolved within our community. 

   Co-Secretary General, Jack Bracchi, was the one who had reached out to Commissioner Director Cappelli to speak at SJMUN XXV. Bracchi was incredibly pleased with the guest speaker, believing it the best part of the conference. Bracchi was especially pleased with how Cappelli was able to effectively tie his speech in with the theme of Addressing and Preventing Future Conflicts and gave importance to the issues that were to be debated in committees. 

   Saint Peter’s Preparatory School was the conference’s biggest winner. Over 40% of all awards were won by Saint Peter’s. This includes two Best Novice positions, six Honorable Mentions, and five Best Delegates. Saint Peter’s Preparatory dominated this conference – no other school came close. 

   Eastern, unfortunately, was not as successful as Saint Peter’s Prep. Only two Eastern students won an award. One of these students was junior Kevin Yun. This was Yun’s first conference as part of Eastern’s Model United Nations team, and he was awarded Best Novice in his committee. 

   Yun was extremely anxious for his first conference. Leading up to October 21, he felt extraordinarily intimidated, especially by Model United Nations’ reputation for professionalism and “no-nonsense, no-mistakes vibes”. 

   On the day of the conference, these nerves were put to an end. Yun stated that he surprisingly gained a lot of enjoyment from his first conference and loved seeing, “everyone argue, making alliances, and just generally socializing with people from different schools.” 

   Yun was rather shocked when he saw that he had been awarded Best Novice of his committee, stating,  “I’m almost positive there were other novices that had put a lot more effort into this than I had.” Nevertheless, Yun had a positive experience and was one of only two who represented Eastern in the award category at SJMUN XXV. 

   The next Model United Nations conference in South Jersey will be TechMUN and will be hosted by Camden County Technical School on December 9. Following that, Moorestown will be hosting MooMUN on February 3. When asked if he would attend these upcoming events, Kevin Yun responded with an excited “yeah.”