College President Surprised Student With Sweet New Viral Wake-Up Call
A University of Vermont student received the gentlest possible nudge out of bed this week, and the person doing the nudging was the last one she expected. On October 14, UVM President Marlene Tromp slipped into a dorm room in Burlington, knelt beside sophomore Hannah Lapier’s bed, and roused her with a warm “Good morning! Wake up, sleepyhead” — a wholesome stunt coordinated entirely behind the scenes by Lapier’s own roommate. The moment, filmed and posted to TikTok, has since sailed past 600,000 views and turned a small campus prank into a feel-good story people everywhere needed, as NBC 5 reported.
How the UVM Roommate Pulled Off the Prank
The whole thing was dreamed up by Lapier’s roommate, Serena LoScalzo, who quietly arranged for the university’s 28th president to be the one to wake her friend. Tromp came prepared, arriving not just with a cheerful greeting but with a few thoughtful props in hand, including a University of Vermont alarm clock and a bag of bagels to start the morning right. In the clip, a bleary Lapier blinks awake to find the head of her entire university smiling down at her, and her slow-dawning realization of exactly who is in the room is the kind of pure, unscripted reaction no amount of planning could buy.
Why the Video Struck Such a Chord
What could have been an awkward intrusion instead played as something genuinely sweet, and viewers responded in kind, flooding the comments with delight that a university president would be such a good sport. Tromp, for her part, framed the whole escapade as a reflection of the school she leads. She shared that the moment captured the warmth and closeness of the UVM community, the sense that this is a place where the person at the very top will happily kneel by a student’s bed with bagels in hand. Lapier echoed the sentiment, noting that the gesture felt true to the culture she has found on campus, where people look out for one another in ways big and small.
A Small Moment With a Big Heart
There is something quietly lovely about a story this simple going this far, and it is worth pausing on why. In a feed often crowded with noise, a clip of a college president choosing kindness — showing up, playing along, and making one student feel seen — is the kind of thing that reminds everyone how much a tiny, generous act can carry, much like the small moments of joy we love to spotlight. Lapier woke up to the surprise of her semester, LoScalzo pulled off a prank with nothing but affection behind it, and the rest of us received a thirty-second reminder that the warmest gestures are usually the smallest ones.
