After winning two consecutive weeks in the summer, Orientation Leader Sarah Ramsundar’s fourth week orientation group has won the Lip Sync finals.

Lip Sync is an event that freshmen orientation groups compete in during the summer. Each group choreographs dances or skits in tune with background music. The event’s intent is to break the ice for incoming freshmen as well as provide some healthy competition for students.

For Ramsundar, a junior childhood education major, the competition was mostly against her other groups. Out of five weeks of Orientation, Ramsundar’s groups had achieved first place for weeks two, three and four. The fifth week Ramsundar was unable to compete due to being re-focused on the family program and the first week of orientation her group came in second place.
Lip Sync routines do not have any fixed criteria. Any song can be chosen and any skit can be done. Some groups use this freedom to involve various concepts they want to perform but Ramsundar’s groups had a consistent theme of relating skits to Pace life and her personal heritage.
“What I love about Sarah’s groups is that she uses Trinidadian music,” said Robert Thomas Jones, Assistant Director of Student/Greek Life and one of the voters for the winner of Lip Sync. Ramsundar is Trinidadian and uses Lip Sync as a way to expose people to the culture. “It makes the performance unique and related to her,” Jones said.
Ramsundar’s groups also incorporate elements from Pace into the lip sync. Her winning group introduces the performance with a sound bite that asks “How do I get involved?” The rest of the performance involves signs of various organizations on campus being held up while students perform a skit relevant to that organization such as Pace’s Nursing Club SNAP and a routine about nurses on campus.
Although each of Ramsundar’s groups has a common theme, the creative process is left in the hands of the students. Basic ideas such as relating skits to Pace and select music choices are made by Ramsundar but Choreography, skit narratives and music selection is decided by each group of students.
“The point is to have fun,” said Ramsundar. “I made sure it wasn’t one person doing everything. Everyone in the group gets involved.” Students have free reign to get as involved as they want to be.
Ramsundar didn’t want to pick a favorite of her finalist performances but had some insight for why her week four group won.

“That group was the most unified,” said Ramsundar. “They created a chant where I say ‘best group’ and they respond ‘you know.’”
The winning group synchronized their outfits, purchased and wore blue and yellow war paint and had the highest attendance of all the groups. Of thirteen people, eleven showed up for their final performance. By comparison, other groups typically had seven or eight people in the final performance.
The runner-up groups had their share of positive reception as well. Week five’s performance held up signs of countries that each student was from and incorporated the school’s mascot, T-Bone, into the skits. They ended up in second place.
Week one’s routine got third place but also received the greatest level of applause. Their performance ended with a male student comically lip singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” The student gestured in a way that implied the song was dedicated to Rachel Carpenter, Director of Orientation and a voter for the winner of Lip Sync. This dedication was met with an uproar of applause and laughter from the crowd.
Winners of lip sync were awarded a gift card for the campus bookstore. Freshmen who attended Lip Sync gained points for their house for the House Cup competition in their University 101 course. Various other upcoming events will also contribute to the House Cup competition for any freshmen who enjoy healthy competition but missed out on the Lip Sync finals.