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123 Although many conferences attempt to give the impression that awards are not important and that the key reason for the conference’s existence is education, solving the world’s problems, etc., virtually all of them actually give awards to individuals and sometimes to schools. So you might as well compete for them. Judging for awards can be conducted by the chairs of the committees, other members of the Secretariat, outside experts, faculty members, the sponsors of the participating schools, or even the participants. School awards are usually based on summing the performances of all of the delegations from a participating school, with weight given for the more senior awards. Sometimes the absolute number of awards, weighted or unweighted, is considered, sometimes it is divided by the number of students attending. (One unique method, used in the past by the National Model Arab League, gives individual awards, even to paired delegations. It is thus possible for partners to get different awards. We are not persuaded that putting partners in competition with each other is the best way to go.) Each method has its benefits and disadvantages. Make sure you know who is judging your students before you arrive. In addition to delegates, sometimes conferences will give awards to Chairs (determined by vote by the coaches who have visited all of the committees) and to coaches. Criteria for the latter can include attempts by the Secretariat to make up for grave administrative errors in treating a school, in addition to criteria you might otherwise expect. In some instances, you can nominate colleagues for the best coach award. Some conferences will admit their competitive nature up front, and will provide discussions of their awards criteria. One of the most complete awards guidelines we have seen is from the Prince William MUN, hosted by C.D. Hylton Senior High School in Woodbridge, Virginia. The conference is one of the largest high schoolhosted MUNs on the east coast, with some eight hundred students and faculty members attending. Here’s what the PWMUN Secretariat tells its participants: APPENDIX B: AWARDS CRITERIA PRINCE WILLIAM (PWMUN–C.D. HYLTON SR. HIGH SCHOOL) JUDGING CRITERIA Judging criteria have elicited tremendous debate among both the student-delegates and the faculty. We therefore establish the following and strongly urge the adherence of these guidelines. All decisions on recognition of outstanding performance will be made by the committee staff assigned to that particular committee. For each committee, there shall be two delegation awards: a best delegation and an outstanding delegation. Each committee is recommended to have no more than two honorable mentions, but these are not mandatory. The use of honorable mentions is under the discretion of the Chair. For the PWMUN Conference there will be three Secretariat awards: The Secretary General’s Award for Best Delegation, the Director General’s Award for Merit, and the Director General’s Award for Honor. In order to be fair to all participating schools, the Secretariat awards shall be decided by overall performance of country delegations. The award will be given to the school with the best country delegation. The following criteria are listed in order of importance: 1. The ability of a delegate to accurately and knowledgeably follow his or her country’s policies on the issues under discussion Accurate policy representation is a must if realism is to be achieved. However, if a delegate is representing a country that rarely speaks in the UN, the delegate should not do that during the simulation. All delegates should actively participate in all debates and caucusing whether or not their country would do so in the actual UN. 2. Realistic and characteristic role-play as a diplomat and delegate to the UN Compromise and negotiation should be the goal of each delegate. (Authors’ Note: We believe that the purpose of a delegation is to express the views of the government of their country, and to get the best deal they can. Certain pariah countries’ policies are inherently nonnegotiable. Your Chairs will understand that.) Those who display these qualities will make the proper impression. Team delegations will be evaluated on how well they cooperate in fulfilling the delegations’ responsibilities. There should not be an aggressive , bullying style of diplomacy during speaking or caucusing. Of course, there is a proper time for a delegate to speak with force, deep conviction, or even anger; there will, and should be, intense debate. Delegates should use proper diplomatic language at all times, avoid histrionics, and assuredly engage in no name...

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