Skip to main content

[IMPORTANT] Technology Policy, General BMUN Policy, Position Paper Grades

Hi delegates, only one more week until BMUN LXVI!! I hope you are all as excited as I am for conference to begin this Friday. With this in mind, I wanted to give a quick update regarding various BMUN policies, and the technology policy in particular.

BMUN has traditionally been a non-technology conference, but in recent years, changes have been made regarding this policy. This year, we will have three different types of committees in regards to technology, that have been decided by each individual committee. As you may or may not have seen on the UNESCO page, UNESCO will be a "unmod tech" committee, where technology is only allowed for the purposes of resolution writing during unmoderated caucus. We do encourage you to bring your laptops and tablets to conference if you can, but if you can't, don't worry! There will still be plenty of ways for you to be involved. With this being said however, only laptops and/or tablets will be permitted in committee - other electronic devices like cell phones are still discouraged - and only may your electronic devices be used for resolution writing; any delegate found to be doing additional research during committee session will be disqualified from committee awards, so we encourage you to print out hard copies of your research.

For an overview of our technology policy, as well as all other BMUN policies, I suggest you take a look (before conference begins) at this link here: http://www.bmun.org/conference-policies/

Regarding position papers, some of you have already received your graded work with feedback through our online portal Huxley. For those who have not, grades will be up by either today or tomorrow. If you do not see your paper by tomorrow, please email me at hdong@bmun.org, and we will figure out what happened. We suggest reviewing some of our comments to help finalize your research and prep before conference begins. Also note that when you receive your grades, don't think of it so much as a percentage. Our papers are graded on a very coarse scale, with 1-10 being the entire range. The average will probably be somewhere around in the 60s or so - this does NOT mean that it's a D grade paper; in fact, it means that you had a good start to your work, but we there may have been more material or specifics that we wanted to see.

As always, feel free to email me or any of the dais members with any questions or concerns. Our emails are: hdong@bmun.org, ofarfan@bmun.org, hmalingha@bmun.org, and afox@bmun.org. We look forward to seeing you all on Friday!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Last Minute Conference Tips :)

Hey guys! I am super excited for tomorrow and I hope you all are too! :) I just wanted to give you some last minute tips before conference as far as what we are looking for in committee. Speeches/moderated: It is important that you are bringing something new to debate. We are looking for interesting and original content that contributes to committee. Back up what you say with research to really stand out from others. Most of committee we will be in substantive debate, meaning that you will be presenting solutions. Explain and convince others why the solutions which your delegation proposes will solve the problem at hand. With this convincing comes the necessity of delivery. Try to put you ideas in a way understandable to delegates. We will be in a big room so project as much as possible and use your inflection to emphasize the important parts of your speech. Also, remember quality is greater than quantity. We will be trying to keep the speaking even the whole time so only raise ...

Soil Power!

To follow up on the article on the projected maize and wheat production in the world due to climate change, New York times has  this article  by Jacques Leslie that provides a possible solution to both potentials food shortage and global warming. The author describes how a method of carbon sequestration can help solve both. " Now scientists are documenting how sequestering carbon in soil can produce a double dividend: It reduces climate change by extracting carbon from the atmosphere, and it restores the health of degraded soil and increases agricultural yields. Many scientists and farmers believe the emerging understanding of soil’s role in climate stability and agricultural productivity will prompt a paradigm shift in agriculture ,..." The article is pretty loaded with one of the solution that have become popular among environmental scientists. Read and ask any questions you might have.

Egyptian Bread Riots

One important aspect of sustainable agriculture that often remains overlooked is the negative effect which it can have on the stability of governments. Although these may seem unrelated, governments have been hit hard by food shortages due to climate related natural disasters, which without sustainable agriculture, can proceed to wipe out entire food supplies. The Middle East has been hit particularly hard by these food shortages due to the nature of their governments subsidy system. In the mid to late 1900s, many governments attempted to launch plans of food subsidies in an attempt to maintain power and favor of the people. Suddenly, citizens were receiving more aid than ever before and put much trust in the previously unstable relationship with the government. However, although good in principle, the citizens soon became reliant on these subsidies and expected them from their government. Many nations have attempted to receive aid for the debt that these subsidies have placed them in...