Editor’s note: Sophia Shalbey is a current member of the MUN club who participated in and led a GRIFFMUNX committee this year

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — 2026 marks the 10th annual GRIFFMUN, a conference held by Los Alamitos High School’s Model United Nations team, the largest academic debate team on campus. MUN members, or “MUN-ers”, as they are affectionately referred to, simulate the United Nations at their conferences. As part of the GRIFFMUN event, students research a topic aligned with a specific UN organ (such as the World Health Organization or the United Nations International Children’s Fund), prepare speeches, compile their solutions and arrive at the conference in formal attire, where they will exercise proper academic MUN vernacular while solving global issues.

Learning to do all of this is no small feat. Hosting a conference, however, is an entirely different beast. The student board, with the help of parent volunteers and over 60 active club members, helps to make this a reality each year on February 14 for all of the LAHS MUN participants, including those from surrounding schools who attend with their MUN teams. 

“When I first started working here 13 years ago, there were six students in the club and hosting our own conference was a distant dream,” said the sole advisor of the LAHS MUN team, Ms. Kibtya, on how special this conference is. This year, as part of their 10-year celebration, the conference was renamed to GRIFFMUNX to celebrate a decade of MUN students’ success. 

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Sophia Shalbey

The entire LAHS MUN club rehearsed committee procedure, spending half a day simulating a real committee, to ensure that GRIFFMUN continues to be defined by its equitability and excellence.

The dedication of this club-wide effort to maintain this legacy is apparent, with preparation for the next GRIFFMUN starting almost immediately after the current GRIFFMUN ends. Ms. Kibtya works closely with the student board to decide on the conference theme, committee topics and ensuring that each detail of the conference is perfect.

When starting the preparation to host this conference, LAHS MUN board members first decide on committees (both their topics and the UN organ that would encompass them). Then they must research and write a background guide to provide delegates with preliminary information on the topics. Each board member, aside from the president and vice president, runs their own committee. Following this, board members grade policy papers, submitted by individual delegates, which contain their research, country policy and proposed solutions to the topic. Lastly, MUN board members and participating students must run their committee on the day of the conference. However, the hours of setup and breakdown are incredibly demanding of time, energy, ideas and creativity.

Michael Wu, Undersecretary of GRIFFMUN and LAHS senior, is well-versed in the intricacies of this. His role is to oversee the process of designing and researching each committee and to act as a liaison between club members, board members, Ms. Kibtya, the MUN booster club, school administration and the other schools attending GRIFFMUN. Wu also leads the development of the conference graphics and overarching theme to reflect the type of outside-the-box thinking MUN fosters.

This year’s GRIFFMUN committee topics ranged from Combating Medical Misinformation on Maternal and Reproductive Health to the Synthetic Drug Trade and Governance Over Satellites and everything in between; the conference theme of “Take Your Seat At The Table” aimed to reflect the informative and global approach to problem-solving that the committees seek to uphold and promote. 

“It is always really cool to see all of our hard work pay off…everything that goes into GRIFFMUN is so intentional,” Sarah Jimenez, a four-year member and current MUN vice president, said. 

A highly decorated delegate and former head of her own committee, Jimenez describes both the legacy she will be upholding and her sense of duty to leave the club and the conference better than she found it. From competing in MUN events across the country to her own backyard in Southern California, each experience results in improvement for the club and is indicative of its fluidity.

Not only is GRIFFMUNX a piece of history for the LAHS MUN program, but it is a space built on teamwork, diplomacy, creativity and awareness. Ultimately, the goal of this conference is to equip students with the skills to stay informed, encourage them to engage in their communities and challenge them to speak up about issues they care about for decades to come.