Beatrice Roussell ’24 wakes up early and brews coffee in her Keurig before bundling up with a ski coat and winter hat. She walks from her house off Wahsatch to campus. In the cold of early March, the morning sun’s rays dance off the grass of Tava Quad, casting Pikes Peak in bright gold. These early morning walks are quiet, footsteps the only sound throughout the silent, still campus.
Seven other students join her in Worner. Nestling themselves into a conference room tucked-away on the second floor, they brush sleep from their eyes and sip warm drinks. It’s slow in the morning, but they are up, attentive, and eager. This meeting marks the first of six early-morning training sessions prior to the Model United Nations (MUN) conference in Washington DC.
Roussell, the team’s trainer, leads the discussion on practice and policy. Conferences are comprised of a myriad of unique, self-contained, simulated committees. Committees are assigned to students and differ greatly from one another in content and focus, but shared the same rules, guidelines, and general strategies. Over the course of the block, these trainings will evolve into personalized sessions centered around tactics for negotiating and coaching for public speaking.
“This is your personality and your style as you’re dialoguing with people,” says Sarah Hinkle, Director of the Speaking Center and CC’s competitive communications teams. “Never more than now, at this conference, will this matter — when you are trying to convey your message to have more weight, and critical value, over somebody else in a way that’s likable.”
This advice matches the peer-to-peer mentorship that makes up the backbone of the small, eight-person team. Learning about each other’s professional habits creates a sense of familiarity, enabling both constructive criticism and communal camaraderie. But even as the practices become more opportunity for detailed advising and team bonding, the early start time doesn’t get easier for everyone.
“It’s only Tuesday,” groans Arez Khadir ’25 as he and the other delegates-to-be stumble into the conference room for the first morning session of the second week.
It’s a longstanding CC tradition to hold training in the early hours of the day. Roussell and Zoey Rousche ’24, the club’s Secretary General, remember their early days in the same conference room at these same early hours. But, even if there was a strong push for change, the group would be hard pressed to find a new time. Class at CC occupy the mornings, and the team’s diverse array of extracurricular obligations makes afternoon scheduling virtually impossible. Roussell and Britt Nerad ’25 both major in the hard sciences, creating a conflict in the slot between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., when STEM students are often in the lab.
But Roussell appreciates the club for how it differs from her day-to-day academic ventures. “Coming into college, I was very unsure if I wanted to do more of a STEM or poli sci route,” she says. “So, this is a good way to fulfill that interest without having to major in it.”
Moreover, Roussell enjoys surrounding herself with people who hold a vast range of interests. “I do adore the people who came before me at MUN. They provided such a safe space for me as a freshman and sophomore. I wanted to do that for other people.”
And when these early morning sessions veer away from specific competition tactics, they often lead to a more game-like approach to training.
“I really enjoyed Coup,” says Rousche. The casual tabletop game utilizes a unique but simple deck with only five types of cards. The last-man-standing victory condition encourages players to both bluff, negotiate, and anticipate each move to come.
While more removed than the hands-on guidance at the center of the sessions, the game embodies what the early morning wake-up could never erase: a common interest in each other. The coming trip to D.C. marks the first conference for half of the travelers, but the novelty of this early-morning perspective produced community, collaboration, and on the days training ended early, a few contentious rounds of Coup.
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