CCWA Takes on MUNtreal

In the first conference of the spring semester, eight members of the MUN team traveled to Montreal for McMUN. A journey that began for most at 4 in the morning took us through New York, a surprise in the form of CCWA alum Mack Hogan (on his way to warmer weather), an almost-empty plane, coffee so burnt almost none of us could believe it was possible, and finally into Montreal — where we hastily got food and half of us began to do last-minute prep for our Thursday-night committee sessions.

I served as a representative of the Canadian Security Establishment (Canada’s version of the NSA!) in the Five Eyes: Rise of Artificial Intelligence specialized agency. We debated the merits of widening public relations efforts as intelligence agencies (we’re spies?!), denounced TikTok over 15 times in committee (I kept a tally), and pretended to know what on earth “machine learning” was and how deep fakes worked. My resolution bloc presented a paper titled “Five AIs” which provided five sections on how to use artificial intelligence in information gathering and all things spy-related. At the end of the day, 20 MUN nerds (only one of us majoring in computer science) faked it til we made it for a whole weekend, and isn’t that what MUN is all about?

Kathleen & Piper as well as Vince & Lizzie worked to set themselves apart in large GA committees (UNEP and SPECPOL), while Simon made such a name for himself that he won his committee’s “Best Meme” award. Emily tackled migration issues, and Ryan utilized murderous ballerinas to set himself apart in our only crisis committee, Death of Stalin.

It was a challenging conference for all of us, but at the end of the weekend, we all had a great time—aided by the fun that was all-you-can-eat sushi, the Mediterranean restaurant from an alternate universe (seriously, they were out of pita), multiple trips to get poutine, weather warmer than Columbus, and of course McParté. Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend in Montreal, in January, with some of my favorite delegates!! 🥺💞

- Anya Chew, Deputy of GA Training