By Briana Murphy and Tyler Watts
Staff Writers

Boarding life is one of the gems of the LFA experience. Building community and camaraderie are high points of living on campus, and as time progresses, students develop a sense of pride for the dorm they call home. While dorm events and activities have always been in attendance, things are heating up on campus after hours, thanks to a new competition— The Lake Forest Academy Dorm Cup.
The Dorm Cup was created to engage boarding students in a slew of competitions. Similar to the House Cup, a year-long school-wide competition featuring small activities along the hallways and larger campus-wide events, the Dorm cup is a year-round quest for victory that pits dorms head to head. Challenges are held on the first Thursday of the month past study hours. The types of competitions held vary, and the scoring system of Dorm Cup is dependent upon the format of the event.
“Different events are pointed differently depending on the event and how it’s structured,” said Michael Lenstevich, Proctor of Warner dormitory.
The turnout has continued to increase as events have been held. “Our hope is that the rates of participation will increase until we have one hundred percent participation from the boarders,” said Lentskevich. He believes that students will begin to take notice of how fun these are to participate in and create an air of playful rivalry. The Proctors and Mr. Freeman work together to create a variety of enjoyable activities for students to participate in.
“My role is helping out proctors logistically,” said Freeman. “My job is to help them execute what they want to do. Whether obtaining supplies or helping with discussion of rules and scoring, I am happy to ride the train that they’re driving.” He is optimistic to see the good that friendly rivalries could do to unite boarding students outside of the dorm walls, potentially building friendhsips across dorms.
“The different activities always end up bringing an unexpected group of people together” said Giselle Annan, a proctor in Marshall Field.
Despite expectations, not all events are strictly dorm vs. dorm. Some events require dorms to team up in groups to compete as a team. During cops and robbers, the first of the Dorm Cup events, the five dorms formed two teams to crush their respective opponents.
Ferry Hall and Atlass faced off against Field, Warner, and Mac. Students raced across the Quad in colorful glow-sticks, casting light upon the grass. Field was awarded best cops and Atlass ended the night successfully as the quickest robbers.
These events allow boarding students to create playful rivalries among dorms. The stakes are especially heightened since the dorms are contending for a mysterious grand prize.