After a hiatus of several years, BYU's Model European Union Team is back in action. Four students recently traveled to Seattle to participate in a regional competition.
MEU at BYU
Model European Union (MEU) is a diplomatic simulation program that allows students to learn about the workings of the European Union and its member states. Wade Jacoby was instrumental in building up the West Coast MEU program with colleagues from the University of Washington and other institutions. For years, BYU's team was famous for their success in the MEU competitions, and they set a standard for other universities. After Professor Jacoby's sudden death in 2020, the BYU MEU team participated in a virtual competition, led by our long-term coach Liz Jevtic-Somlai. Unfortunately, Professor Jevtic-Somlai left BYU soon after that, and we did not compete for several years.
In the fall of 2024, the leadership of the West Coast MEU organization invited BYU European Studies coordinator Rob McFarland to put together a team and to return to the competition. Professor McFarland asked his student assistant, Sara Jensen, to use her Model United Nations experience to find four willing BYU students and to coach an MEU team for the 2025 competition. Luckily, four very capable students applied and volunteered their time and efforts to prepare for the competition: Abby Hall Jafek, Sydney Spencer, Brendan Murphy and Annabelle Ward.
Murphy, a philosophy and English double major with a minor in Scandinavian Studies, participated in MEU and Model United Nations in high school, so when he heard about the BYU MEU team at a German Club event, he was excited about the chance to get involved. "I think of MEU as a slightly more accessible collegiate MUN," he says, "in that you can do MEU without taking extra classes or committing to a lot of time away from classes. I enjoyed getting to know students from across the western US and Canada while discussing issues which I am passionate about." Having done an internship and gained some experience in human rights and international policy, he says, "MEU was a natural extension of my interests. In the future, I see MEU being a helpful exercise in building relationships and discussing policy."
Competing in Seattle
On March 7, 2025, Jafek and Spencer (representing Belgium) and Murphy and Ward (representing Luxemburg) joined Jensen and Professor McFarland at the University of Washington in Seattle. The two teams turned in their position papers and then joined in the debates about environmental policy, the protection of democracy, and digital security.
Murphy, who was on the Energy Ministers committee, researched and discussed EU climate goals and initiatives. He says, "I improved my abilities to write and research quickly, to network, and to speak persuasively. MEU is as much about the issues as it is about the competition or performance, which I appreciate."
At the end of the competition, every single member of the team was nominated for some sort of honor, and Brendan Murphy was honored as one of the top four students from the 2025 West Coast MEU. BYU is back in the running!
Join the MEU
Next year, Murphy and Ward will head up our team, and we hope to be able to recruit four more BYU students to take to the West Coast MEU competition in Seattle. Sara Jensen will be serving as the coach for the team again, and the BYU team has a good chance of regaining our spot at the top of the competition. We welcome students from all levels of study who are dedicated, enthusiastic, and willing to learn.
Murphy says that it was a "wonderful, relatively relaxed experience." To any students who might be interested in getting involved, he says, "While the competition itself can be intense, I find that the program as a whole is focused on helping students to engage with complex and important issues while learning about their own interests and abilities. We get to compete at the beautiful University of Washington campus in Seattle, get to know cool students here at BYU and across the west, and to prepare ourselves for future professional and personal engagement in policy issues."
Interested in learning more? Email robmc@byu.edu.