Students compete in Model Arab League

Four CSC students who are members of the CSC Social Sciences Club competed in the Great Plains Regional Model Arab League Conference online competition during last Friday and Saturday.  

Students at the conference participated in parliamentarian procedure to practice implementing diplomatic policies throughout the Arab League. They worked to create policy, draft press releases and produce resolutions among nations by debating topics about hypothetical situations. 

Social Sciences Professor Justin Curtis, who is also an adviser to the social sciences club, helped students prepare and become involved with the event which was hosted online by Missouri Western State University. 

“The conference is modeled after the proceedings of the Arab League, so each school that attends represents a distinct country in the League of Arab States,” Curtis said. “We represented the Palestinian authority.”

Curtis said students experienced simulations where they had to pass resolutions, create executive agencies and serve as diplomats between countries. 

“The environmental affairs committee experienced an oil spill off the coast of Yemen, and so all of the sudden their committee and the political affairs committee, which we didn’t have any students on that, but they just had to jump in and figure out what to do with that,” Curtis said. 

Curtis said the Model Arab League is like Model United Nations. He says the smaller Model Arab League provides students with more opportunities to speak during the debates. 

“It was impossible to just kind of sit back; everyone was participating at every moment of the conference,” Curtis said. 

Andrew Corbin, Junior of Box Elder, South Dakota and his competition partner on the environmental affairs committee, Eric Pollack, sophomore of Alliance, won the Distinguished Delegation Award for being most accurate and active in the environmental session.  

“The competition provided me and my team an opportunity to learn about the functions of governments through the use of current affairs and diplomacy,” Corbine said.  

Pollack also said he learned more about diplomacy in the middle east. 

“We represented the state of Palestine for MAL and had to do research about the country to represent them accurately in the conference,” Pollack said. “I also learned how complicated Arab League and other forms of international diplomacy is, as there are a lot of procedural rules you must go through.” 

Curtis estimates students gave between 30 and 50 short impromptu diplomatic speeches during the competition, and said students began preparing for the competition in February by reading about current affairs in the Arab world and trying to understand the relationships within the league.  

“I was really impressed with our students’ willingness to just jump in and try something that csc has never participated in before, and I think they did a fantastic job,” Curtis said.  

Laura Clay, junior of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is another student who participated in the competition. Clay also serves as president of the Social Sciences Club. 

“I think I want to maybe work for the state department one day, maybe in an embassy later in life, and I think it was a great opportunity to figure out how international politics work, and just get a better perspective on a sovereign state that I really didn’t know much about,” Clay said.  

Clay’s competition partner, Hend Elnady, sophomore of Cairo, Egypt, plans to do the event next year and encourages other students to join.  

“I think it’s a very good experience and I would encourage other people to try it out,” Elnady said.