As Russian troops amassed on Ukrainian borders in early 2022, students from St. Ambrose's Model United Nations team were in the thick of studying the viewpoints of each country, such as their stance on women's rights, economic recovery from the COVID crisis, and the tense relationship between the two countries.
On Wednesday, Feb. 23, those students began a days-long mock United Nations conference in St. Louis. Some SAU students were tasked with representing Russia; others represented Ukraine. After the conference began, they heard the news: Russia had begun its invasion of Ukraine.
"My stomach dropped to 45-feet below the ground," said Hannah Knowles. The sophomore was the lone St. Ambrose student playing the role of Russia's Security Council representative at this year's Midwest Model United Nations Conference. "I thought I was going to have to come up with ways to defend [the invasion] immediately with no time to do research, no time to form thoughts."
But she soon learned that in this simulation of the United Nations, time had already stopped.
"Selfishly, I felt better because I didn't have to pretend to be the one responsible for that," she explained of learning about the rule. For the purposes of this conference, time "stopped" on Tuesday, Feb. 22, two days before the invasion.
"I'm really glad time stopped because even though it was a simulation for me, it is real to the people that are having their country invaded and are seeing their family members die. In breaks in sessions, we could all kind of look at the news together and talk about it as humans and not as our country, so I was still able to be sympathetic and not have to try and justify Russia's actions."
The February conference was tough for all of the SAU students involved as they represented two countries at war. Now that it is over, they are ready to stand in solidarity with Ukraine.
During the week of March 7-11, Model United Nations is sponsoring several events to support Ukrainians. Monday through Thursday, Model UN members will be at different locations across campus to help students learn where they can donate money and how they can write letters of support. Then on Friday, the group will lead a solidarity march beginning at 1:30 p.m. on the Rogalski Center patio.
Samantha Sancen, a sophomore studying Political Science and Theology, served on the General Assembly Second Committee representing Ukraine during the conference. Although she says it was easier for her to play this role than her classmates representing Russia, the conflict in the region still offered a unique learning perspective.
"You know, you work so hard to represent a country and then you see what's happening; it's just very saddening," Sancen said. "But, I mean, a very interesting learning experience to see what can escalate by the minute."
"It's definitely an ongoing research process," Knowles explained. All 19 years of my life I've been learning U.S. history. So, I may get to a conference and understand what my country's position is, but I may not understand why. I have to make sure I can justify those things as well because other countries are naturally going to try to target my weakness and really try to understand why I believe the way I do and try to get me to change that."
St. Ambrose Model United Nations faculty advisor Duk Kim, PhD, says this type of learning is difficult to achieve during lectures.
"Regardless of what our major is, international affairs are closely related to our daily lives, so our students find this opportunity very useful to learn about things we don't discuss in the classroom."
Dr. Kim is a Professor of Political Science who teaches a little about United Nations, but there isn't time to take a more intimate look at how the international body works in addition to ever-evolving politics in real-time.
"Obviously we talk about like current events that are going on but we're never really in detail about what that would entail for the future or how we can solve that issue," Sancen said. "At Model UN we write certain resolutions, so we work with different countries to kind of solve a problem that's going on."
Problem-solving and understanding the viewpoints of others is something all students can benefit from.
"I just have a much more open mindset because I've had to sit in other countries' shoes in the last year and a half, so it's just made me more open to change and also encouraged me to better develop my 'why' and my justification for why I believe the things I do," Knowles, an International Studies and Data Analytics major, said.
"It's not just for political science and international studies majors," Sancen said. "We're always open and accepting new members and getting different perspectives. Every major has different skills that they learn and we're always open to new learning experiences as we've seen when we represent different nations all the time."