CRISIS STAFF MEMBERSHIP

CRISIS has a standing staff, whose members return year after year. This is necessary to acquire the expertise required to make the simulation effective. It takes about two years for new staff to acquire sufficient familiarity with the program to be able to operate independently of the Game Manager. The staff has included adults, most of whom are MIT alumni or affiliates, a few undergraduates and/or grad students, and high school students.

Student staff members participate in the planning, provide ideas and student reaction to concepts developed by older staff members, and help with the development work. During the simulation, most student staff are plants, participants who take direction from the Game Manager, enabling him to better modulate what happens.

CRISIS offered a class for ESP's HSSP in 2002 to recruit student staff, but sign-ups were insufficient to offer the program as originally intended. Instead, we conducted a class in how to conduct a coup d'etat.

Adult staff members, including undergrads and graduate students, do the bulk of the organizational and development work, run the seminars, and staff the program. Roles include:

Seminars-- Writing and conducting the seminars. See list.
 
Preliminary Meeting-- Each adult staff member has an assigned role during this first meeting of all participants. Roles include introducing the scenario, reviewing the rules, conducting a seminar on role-playing, and matching students to roles. Student staff members aren't acknowledged to keep their identities secret.
 
During the Simulation-- Staff roles, and required skills, include:
 
    Economic Assessment-- Required skill level depends on the importance economics plays in that year's scenario.
 
    Military Assessment-- One per potential theater of combat. Requires familiarity with how war is waged.
 
    Messages Manager-- Usually the person who last tweaked the software we use to record and display messages.
 
    Warden-- Usually assigned to a walk-in staff member. Requires limited skill.
 
    Game Manager-- Controls flow of the game, approves assassination and/or terrorism plans (based on appropriateness, caliber of the plan, etc.), conducts inter-session debriefings.
 
    Public Opinion-- Never fully implemented, but a part of the "Keel." Requires knowledge of the internal politics of the country to which they are assigned.  For details, click here.
 

Several members of the CRISIS staff have gone on to deeper involvement in politics and some have sought careers in the Foreign Service. Three of our alumni found themselves working together on the Kerry campaign. We haven't generated any ambassadors or members of Congress yet, at least that we know of, but we wouldn't be too surprised if that were to happen at some point. For others, it has simply become a passion to which they return each year.

WORK LOAD

There are four types of staff work done in preparing for CRISIS:

 
    Mechanical-- providing food, xeroxing, acquiring tokens, etc. Takes 4-5 hours total per year. Requires little skill.
 
    Organizational-- Scenario and country-list development; organizational maintenance: sending announcements for meetings, preparing the agenda, and distributing minutes; handling external correspondence; tweaking goal-sheets for coherence and basic conflicts. Requires familiarity with both organizational and content issues. Takes 20-40 hours per year.
 
    Writing Goal Sheets-- Takes 1-2 hours per sheet if all role-sheets within a single country are written by the same person. Provides introduction to the issues in the scenario. Requires research skills and the ability to write concisely. All staff members are expected to contribute to this effort.
 
    Seminar Development-- Requires expertise in the subject matter. Takes many hours, but once done, it doesn't have to be repeated.

Staff meetings are conducted five or six times in the months leading up to CRISIS, to discuss progress and make work assignments.

The messages collected during the simulation are processed into a souvenir newsletter called Critical Times, which is sent to all participants. While some messages, especially war, terror, and assassination plans, have to be typed up after the event, most of the "diplomatic" traffic has been projected, so we already have it in electronic form. Generating the newsletter takes several hours, mainly for editing to ensure coherence and exclusion of remarks that are ad hominem, offensive or otherwise inappropriate.


HOW TO SIGN UP

We invite you to join in the fun and keep this program available to future generations of students.

If you would like to join the staff, please send mail to Dr. Zussman. He will put you on the staff mailing list and you will be invited to the next staff meeting.



Return to CRISIS home page.