Dear Faculty Advisor,
My name is Michael Educate, and I am the President of Yale Model Congress for the 2010-2011 academic year. It is my distinct pleasure to invite you and your school to Yale Model Congress 2010. With our new Executive Board in place and high expectations for next year, we are excited to begin preparing for the 2010 conference and we hope you are too! This year, the conference will be held from December 2-5, 2010, at the Omni Hotel in New Haven. We were very proud of our success in 2009. Nevertheless, we have incorporated a lot of your feedback from last year into our plans for this year's YMC, and we are committed to running a professional conference that exceeds your schools' expectations.
To help create a true simulation of our federal government, this year we are focusing on more effectively integrating the special programs into the rest of the conference. These include the Presidential Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and the Press Corps. While all of the components of the conference have been successful in isolation, we expect them to operate cohesively to give the students a greater understanding of how the legislative process actually works. Since we expect members of these programs to be dedicated and prepared, we will be asking for short applications from those interested in participating.
I hope that you will encourage the most promising and committed of your students to apply. The application process will take place in early October. If you have any questions about the applications, please feel free to contact our Secretary of Defense, Katherine Martin, at katherine@yalemodelcongress.org. For specific questions about the programs, please refer to our Staff page online and email the corresponding leaders of the programs: National Security Advisor Sanket Karuri (sanket@yalemodelcongress.org) for the Presidential Cabinet, Chief Justice Stephen Marsh (stephen@yalemodelcongress.org) for the Supreme Court, and Press Secretary Trevor Wagener (trevor@yalemodelcongress.org) for the Press Corps. Descriptions of each program and the application for them will be available online by the end of the summer.
We will again conduct registration and bill submission online via the website. Online registration, however, will not begin until later in the summer on a date to be determined. In the meantime, please e-mail our Secretary of State, Joshua Revesz, at josh@yalemodelcongress.org as soon as possible us to reserve a spot. Joshua will notify you when online registration is available. As always, we strongly believe that small committee sizes are integral to delegate interaction and meaningful legislative debate. To that end, we will continue to ensure small and intimate committees by capping the number of delegates initially at 24 per school.
In an effort to keep the conference accessible to all, we will not be raising attendance fees this year. The delegation fee will be $100, which must be postmarked by July 31st to guarantee your delegation a spot at the conference. The delegate fee will again be $65 and is due by October 15th along with committee assignment forms. I am also proud to announce that we have introduced a financial aid program available to all students. Since this is the first year that we are offering aid, we will test the limits of the program by initially offering to waive the delegate fee for any student who demonstrates sufficient need. Individual students will be required to fill out an application, which will be made available at the beginning of the fall semester. Students must email their applications by September 21st to our Vice President, Logan Mohs, at logan@yalemodelcongrees.org. They will be informed if they have received assistance by October 1st.
Once again, on behalf of the entire Executive Board, I am excited to welcome you to Yale Model Congress 2010. Whether this will be your first time coming to the conference or you're a wizened veteran, I hope you and your students will enjoy a great weekend of debate, politics, and fun at the oldest student-run model congress in the Ivy League. Last year's conference was a great success, and we hope to see you all in New Haven this fall. As always, if you have any suggestions or questions, do not hesitate to contact me at mike@yalemodelcongress.org.
Sincerely,
Mike Educate
President
Yale Model Congress 2010
mike@yalemodelcongress.org