Federal Reserve Board

Please note: this is a special application committee.  Applications will be due September 24.

Thomas Hwang, Director

Sam Himel, Crisis Director

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Dear Governors and Regional Bank Presidents,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Continual Crisis Committee for Harvard Model United Nations 2011. Your applications demonstrated a remarkable depth of interest and passion for economics and public policy. As delegates on the first-ever Federal Reserve simulation at HMUN, you will be tested to your limits by the rapidly unfolding events of the global financial system, upon which we will assume our roles as gatekeepers and overseers.

The Federal Reserve is not simply a bank or a financial depository; its proper name of the Federal Reserve System alludes to its greater and much more expansive role as the central banking system of not only the United States but also, by virtue of the nation’s critical role as the world’s largest economic superpower, the world. In the past two years, with the previously unthinkable collapses of venerable investment banks and evaporating liquidity in global capital markets, the Federal Reserve has taken center-stage in the national discourse on economic policy. The epicenter of the economic wreckage may have been on Wall Street but the focal point of recovery and beacon of hope was, and continues to be, the towering white marble building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. housing the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Renewed fears of instability have upended political processes (as governments deemed insufficiently aggressive were voted out of office), stoked social and civil unrest, and disrupted the lives of the billions of workers dependent on the intricately interwoven fabric of the global economy for survival. Your decisions will, sometimes instantaneously, shape the trajectory of the world’s financial future; and you will have the unprecedented opportunity to fashion a new financial architecture for the twenty-first century.

I am honored to serve as your presiding Director, and not least because this will mark my fifth HMUN. Hailing from New York City, I am a rising sophomore in Lowell House planning to joint concentrate in Government and Statistics. In addition to HMUN, I am currently Under Secretary General of Finance for our college conference, Harvard National Model United Nations, and Deputy Director of the Intercollegiate Model United Nations Team. Beyond Model UN, I am an editor ofThe Harvard Crimson, Vice President of Health, Technology, and Energy for the Harvard Association of Minority Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs, and an avid fencer and coin collector. This summer, with a generous Director’s fellowship from the Institute of Politics, I interned at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

As you research, review, and prepare to assume your role as Governor or Regional Bank President at the historic special session this January, I encourage you to introduce yourself and put a face on your application. Similarly, please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions, comments, or concerns either about committee logistics or macroeconomics more generally. Congratulations on your selection to this illustrious committee and I am genuinely looking forward to meeting all of you in person.

Sincerely,

Thomas J. Hwang