About Us

To the esteemed delegates, 

My name is John Harris, and I am happy to be your Secretary-General for PantherMUNC II. I, alongside my Secretariat, have been working extremely hard to prepare this conference. Last year, for PantherMUNC I, I served as the Secretary of Analytics. I can say, from firsthand experience, that there were moments when it seemed we would not be able to make the conference happen. But, after tireless work, we did. And the conference ended up an amazing success.

For PantherMUNC II, I've worked to ensure there would be no moments of uncertainty. We drafted our policies in March, elected our Secretariat in April, and by May, committees were finalized. This is the standard that we've set: professionalism, exceptional experience, and transparency.

And you will notice mentions of “transparency” often. This year, PantherMUNC II will share all of its internal policies, rubrics, trainings, and plans with the public. As a delegate to many different conferences, I’ve noticed that conference staff hide their internal workings, as though secrecy were part of the prestige. However, I've disagreed with this approach. Our transparency initiatives should make the process of role assignment, position paper grading, and delegate awards clearer and fairer.

This year, PantherMUNC has started accepting chairs from other schools, with Gateway High School as our first collaborator. This reflects the growing reputation of this conference, and more importantly, it means delegates will be challenged by chairs who bring diverse backgrounds and perspectives into their committees. We're proud to be building a conference that extends beyond any single school, and I hope this enriches each delegate's experience. And furthermore, I am extremely grateful that our Secretariat gets to share our insight and knowledge with other teams so that the Southwest Florida MUN scene can flourish.

This year, we've also begun experimenting with features of the UN4MUN framework. The UN4MUN framework was developed by the UN Department of Global Communications in order to promote accurate UN simulations, rather than overly gamified or competitive ones. While I do love competition, I also recognize the importance of faithful and legitimate diplomacy, especially in a world of competing global interests. In my opinion, the conventional wisdom to "steal attention, form your bloc, push out others, and make your resolution pass" can be harmful when we step back and consider what we're representing, since it promotes adversariality and the false-representation of real-world national interests. This year, we've changed our scoring procedures and rules of procedure for GA committees. This should help any delegate planning to attend THIMUN, Global MUN, or any other international MUN, since they tend to align more with the consensus-first UN4MUN approach.

I would like to take the time to thank each member of my Secretariat individually. Thank you to Carter, Under Secretary-General, for always being dependable, and whose connections have proved incredibly useful; to GW, Secretary of General Assemblies, who is extremely prudent and always a much-needed voice of insight and constructive criticism; to Landon, Secretary of Crisis, who is the expert on anything crisis-related (a committee type I regrettably have little experience with); to Marc, Secretary of Finance, a quiet but responsible member, and one who has never failed to respond when called upon; and to Graham, Secretary of Public Relations, and my brother, who has helped us remain calm throughout the stressful planning process. Without everyone on this Secretariat, this conference simply would not be able to happen. For this I am grateful to have them all.

I would also like to thank the delegates. Without delegates, there would be no conference. I am incredibly proud to have the position to make this conference happen, and I can't wait to see what the conference will bring. This conference has been months in the making, and I have full faith you will find it enjoyable.

Sincerely,
John Harris