Position Descriptions (Committee)

Prior MUN staff experience - in a committee staff role - is required to serve as a Director at NWMUN. Usually, due to staff retention, individuals new to staff at NWMUN are not hired as Director in their first year on staff. New staff are regularly hired as Assistant Director, Chair, and Special Adviser.

Committee Director: The Director is the supervising substantive officer of their Committee. Responsible for authoring the majority of the Committee Background Guide; the portions the Director is responsible for are the topic summaries (on each topic the committee will be discussing) and the introductory letter, introducing themselves, the Assistant Director / Chair and the conference to delegates.

At the conference, the Director is primarily responsible for editing working papers as delegates submit them to the dais, and eventually approving them and giving them a document code, making them a draft resolution. The Director is also responsible for ensuring the substantive quality of the committee, which includes ensuring (with the help of the Director of Home Government) that delegates are representing a policy as similar to their countries’ true policy as possible. Finally, the Director is responsible for mentoring their Assistant Director, their Chair, and their Committee’s Special Advisor, to help ensure their growth as a staffer and preparation for future years as a member of the NWMUN Staff.

Committee Assistant Director / Chair: These positions serve as the Procedural Officer of their Committee. They are responsible for authoring one of the topics of the Background Guide. At the conference, the Assistant Director / Chairperson chair the meetings, and are responsible for ensuring the procedural integrity of the proceedings. The Assistant Director / Chair lead the committee without directing them, and are responsible for the integrity of the process, rather than the quality of the outcome, of the committee. In committees where there is both an Assistant Director and a Chairperson, the Chairperson will be primarily responsible for procedural matters, and the Assistant Director will aid the Director in the discharge of their duties.

Note: In the Security Council and Reformed Security Council, the Chair will rotate among the membership; this process will be coordinated by the Director and Assistant Director, who will aid the holder of the rotating Chairmanship in the discharge of their duties.

Special Adviser: Special Advisers serve as "Special Rapporteurs", "Special Advisers," "Special Envoys," or other members of the UN Secretariat focusing on one or more themes that are relevant to the committee that they are assigned to. They are a member of the committee staff for purposes of pre-conference planning, responsible for authoring a section of the Background Guide and assisting in overall committee preparations. At the conference, Special Advisers brief their committees as needed on relevant substantive issues from the perspective of the Secretariat, and are available to answer questions about prior UN action on a topic, statistics and figures, and hypothetical implementation of proposals made by the delegates during the course of the conference.