Shakira’s voice singing “Tsamina mina, eh, eh. Waka waka, eh, eh,” is blasting in the Cole dorm common room at 1 a.m. on a Friday night. Several girls are dancing to the music in preparation for the annual tradition of lip sync contest.
Lip sync contest is one of the many community building activities for the boarding students of Masters, which includes community meals, dorm olympics, open dorms, and many other small activities.
This year’s lip sync contest on Sept. 26 was attended by around 150 students and faculty members. Each of the six dorms: Cole, Cushing, Ford, McCormack, Strong and Thompson–choreographed a six-minute performance for their remix of songs. For instance, first place McCormack danced to the Nigerian song “Shekini”, the Chinese song “Blueprint Supreme”, and the Spanish song “La Mama de La Mama” to present their theme: different cultures of McCormack girls.
Senior John Zachariah, a seven-day boarding student in Thompson, described that he “hated” lip sync during his freshman year, but eventually grew to appreciate it, and danced a lot.
Zachariah said, “Freshman year, I was really in my own shell. [But when] I saw older people I looked up to do it, it kind of encouraged me to get out of my shell and venture out of my comfort zone more.”
The lip sync contest takes place every year during September community weekend. Community weekend is hosted on campus about seven times a year, where all seven-day boarding students are obligated to stay on campus, and five-day boarding students are encouraged to stay. Every community weekend, a dorm would host either a brunch or dinner, featuring elaborate meals, student speeches and performances.
For instance, Thompson dorm hosted a community dinner this past weekend on Oct 18. centered around the theme “Facing Our Fears”. The dining hall was decorated in halloween decorations, and guests came in costumes of black and orange. Senior Zachary Ryan, a five-day boarding student in Thompson dorm, sang “Stand By Me” and made a reflection cherishing the boarding community.
In his speech, Ryan said, “Back at Fordham, they preached community and brotherhood, but nobody does it better than the six dorms, all the families, and staff sitting in front of me right now.”
Other smaller events happen throughout the year for boarders to “have fun” and reinforce a sense of community. Boarding representatives Alex Cho ‘27 and Gabriela Heredia ‘27 organize these events alongside Resident Life director Pilar Mendez-Cruz and Student Activities director Ed Gormley.
“We usually like to do what works best and what we’ve seen good reviews about,” Heredia said. Then she mentioned a few popular inter-dorm competitions. “Whether that be pumpkin-carving or gingerbread-house making – just little stuff that can be done within your dorm and makes you more active within your dorm life,”
The boarding community, while unbeknownst to many members of Masters, took many measures to create an entertaining and welcoming experience.
“I think that it [being a part of the boarding community] helps adults see students as more than just people in their classroom who are working on developing skills, but also as people who come from different parts of the world and therefore have different values, perspectives, senses of humor and traditions,” Mendez-Cruz said. “Boarding life is really where all of that is shared.”
