COC’s Model United Nations program earned a prestigious honor for the campus recently.

The College of the Canyons Model United Nations Club (COCMUN) was ranked among the top 50 universities in North America by the site Bestdelegate.com.

The COC delegation was named as an “Outstanding Delegation,” in the same category as major universities including: Columbia University, Pomona College and USC.

College of the Canyons was the only community college to be recognized in the entire country.

Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN, is an extracurricular activity in which students typically role-play delegates to the United Nations and simulate UN committees.

“Words cannot express how proud I am of this team. I want to thank COCMUN teams past and present and, especially, Jia-Yi Cheng-Levine, the Director of ISP,” said Dr. Phil Gussin, professor of political science and faculty adviser for the COCMUN Club.

This activity takes place at MUN conferences, and at the end of most conferences, the organizers recognized the delegates that have stood out in each committee, according to bestdlegate.com

Awards are given out to the delegates that have knowledge on the subject, their ability to represent their assigned nation and their leadership skills.

Delegates need to meet all of this criteria while being diplomatic and staying true to their respective country’s position.

The COCMUN team competed in three conferences in the fall semester.

The first, SocalMUN, was hosted by Irvine Valley College. This was used to train for the major conference hosted by USC called TrojanMUN.

With the help of the International Services Program (ISP), the team was able to compete in a conference hosted by UC Santa Barbara, SBIMUN.

The ISP Director, Jia-Yi Chang Levine, provided a small grant to cover the cost of delegation fees. This support allowed COCMUN to have another opportunity to compete.

The College of the Canyons Model UN club will also host their own conference in the spring semester.

This conference will feature three committees including a General Assembly with the topic of “Rights in Transition: Global LBGTQ Rights.”

All of the success this semester is just the start for COCMUN. In the Spring they will compete at AggieMUN, hosted by UC Davis, and LAMUN, hosted by UCLA.