Southeast Region Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl 2016

By Jessica Trochez, Faculty Mentor:  Dr. Anne Thebaut, Ethics Bowl Competition held at University of Central Florida, 10/29/2016

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Eight Honors students and I entered the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl held at the University of Central Florida for the first time in Santa Fe history. At this competition, we competed with teams from universities in and out of Florida. The goal was to defend our moral assessment of 12 different case studies addressing very complex, modern ethical issues from a wide range of topics in business, professional, social, and political affairs. We had to not only present an effective argument relying on memory and absolute understanding of the case, we also had to effectively respond to the opposing team as well as the panel of expert judges, all under a certain amount of time.

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A full list of the cases that we studied as a team is provided through the link below.  Among the cases that I was responsible for preparing was one focusing on Bodily Identity Integrity Disorder, a rare condition in which an able body person believes they should be disabled, most commonly manifested by a desire to have the offending body part amputated or otherwise rendered useless.  Given my Psychology major, I was naturally drawn to this case.  My interest led to extensive research, which was also used as the basis for conference presentations for the 2017 Florida Collegiate Honors Council and the 2017 SF Research in Undergraduate Education Oral Presentations.

Model United Nations

By Carlos Alfonzo, Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jennifer Forshee.

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Model United Nations is a simulation of the United Nations, along with all its committees and special meetings. The outcome of the simulation is to improve public speaking, research, and communication skills of the participants. There are several nonprofit organizations and universities that hold Model United Nations conferences, where colleges bring their teams to participate. MUN also features awards for best performers in the conference, including delegation and writing awards.

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I was recruited into the Santa Fe MUN by my Honors INR2002 professor, Jennifer Forshee. By the third week of class, I’d attended my first meeting. The team had been preparing for the Florida Model United Nations conference, the first one of the semester and the one hosted by Santa Fe College. As the host, Santa Fe’s registration fees had been waived the team could include as many people as were interested. I was assigned the country of Laos, or, officially, the Lao People's Democratic Republic in the General Assembly. It’s a Southeast Asian country, which is a region I also focused on during my INR2002 project. If any MUN veteran has given you a piece of advice, it’s that most of the intricacies of the conference can only be learned by doing. The website Best Delegate is good to get started and plan strategy, but the steepest learning curve is found during session at the conference. For a time, I was lost; at some point, I started to realize how the game was played. There are many delegates, each one representing a different interest from some part of the world. Like in real life, not all carry similar power. In many committees, countries such as the United States, Russia, China, France, and the UK carry special weight. However, influence depends mostly on the individual student.

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Despite the difficulty, I realized that I would like to continue. The next conference was the Southern Regional Model United Nations (SRMUN), which was held in Atlanta, Georgia. It was at this conference that I realized my forte was found in writing, and I earned several awards for research and writing. I also helped my delegation reach team awards consistently. When my original partner resigned from her spot, I quickly invited my sister to join me as team partners in a double delegation. We represented Indonesia, a large Southeast Asian nation made up of several islands.

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After three fast-paced, sleep-deprived days, we were able to go for sightseeing in Atlanta. It was my first time seeing skyscrapers, and a proper American city. We walked around downtown, riding the shuttles, watching the Ferris wheel, and walking in a park surrounded by tall buildings. I thought that I could see myself living in such a city.

The spring semester was even busier. We started out with GatorMUN, which is a high school conference held by UF MUN. It was actually my first time at UF, so I took the opportunity to get to know where several buildings were located. In spring, our SF team focused on a different kind of conference called Crisis. In Crisis, delegates assume the identity of certain characters, either historical or fictional, and possess different abilities where fast writing and quick communications take the lead. I was a crisis staff member in GatorMUN crisis committees, and I answered letters sent by the participants.

I competed in the next conference, the Florida Crisis Simulation, hosted by UF MUN. Here, I was the Minister of Morocco in the Cabinet of Morocco committee. Although Morocco is an African Muslim country, people speak both French and Arabic, and the importance of bilingualism is stressed. The debate topics ranged from socialist to right wing policies, French versus Arabic dominance in society, and even the legitimacy of the kingdom.

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The next conference was SRMUN Charlotte. We traveled to North Carolina to compete. For this conference, I represented Chad, a Central African country.  Charlotte, as Bank of America’s headquarters, was surrounded by BofA ATM’s and billboards, and I was exposed to the environment of a growing financial hub. We had a conversation with an Uber driver who had worked in wealth management at Wells Fargo, and explained some of the aspects of the job. My partner and I created a balanced team; while I found myself adept at delivering speeches and writing, I tended to focus on developing friendships with a small number of people. My partner, on the other hand, was very good at speaking with many groups of people. She had the ability to command the room and make her presence known, and the result was that almost everyone in the room knew about us. People would come to work with me because of something they heard at the other side of the room. It was a very effective team.

After a summer break, we started the fall MUN season with another FMUN. This time, my sister and I were able to secure representation of our home country of Venezuela. The funny thing about it was that we had to represent the official government’s views, including their public ties to Russia and China. We were part of the opposition in Venezuela our whole lives, and we disagreed with just about everything the Venezuelan government created. In truth, the real Venezuela was en route to collapse, but in our MUN committees we fervently played the role of the government that denied all fault. Through combined efforts, our Venezuelan delegation won awards in every category. Later, Professor Hom invited us to develop a project based on Venezuela for the Florida Collegiate Honors Council Conference, in which we were able to discuss the reality inside Venezuela.  My position paper that I developed for Venezuela is linked below.

Next, I went to my second SRMUN Atlanta as the United States. I believe it was the best state to end my MUN experience. We represented the interests of the Obama administration shortly after Trump became the president-elect; it was an interesting situation to be. Whenever people mentioned what would occur with our agreements after the next administration, we would have to say that we would attempt to convince the next administration, which weakened our position because of the uncertainty surrounding the country. Being the United States carried the most weight in Western coalitions, and many people asked why the US did not fund this or that project, or what the US would do with certain pledged donations to several countries. Answering these questions required both imagination and knowledge so that nobody could counteract our points with real-life official statements.

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Lastly, I helped with another GatorMUN in the World Trade Organization as an assistant director. Our MUN team was preparing to attend CHOMUN, a MUN conference organized by the University of Chicago focusing on crisis committees. I could not attend this conference due to test scheduling conflicts, but it showed the quality of the Santa Fe College MUN team. Remember, all traveling costs were covered by the college, so that participating in these activities was accessible to anyone willing to put in the effort. 

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And thus my MUN career ended. I continued to help new members until my graduation in spring of 2017. I received a white cord for graduation as a Model United Nations alumnus.

Conferences Attended:

FMUN Gainesville 2015 – Laos

SRMUN Atlanta 2015 – Indonesia

GatorMUN 2016 – Crisis Staff

FLCS UF – Minister of Education of Morocco

SRMUN Charlotte – Chad

FMUN Gainesville 2016 – Venezuela

SRMUN Atlanta 2016 – United States

GatorMUN 2017 – Assistant Director