“PZ Senate Elections Committee presents… PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE – This Friday, March 1st – 4:30-5:30 PM in Benson Auditorium – FEATURING ELECTIONS & EMPANADAS – Join us after for empanadas in the Benson Reception area. Vegan and meat options provided from Boca Burger.”
That’s the entire flier. No candidates. No relevant issues. Just empanadas.
There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with incentivizing turnout, but advertisements like these displace relevant, important information about the event for the sake of food.
The creators of the flier, Pitzer College’s Elections Committee, knows their audience — most Pitzer events without boba, Raising Cane’s, acai bowls or some other culinary incentive tend to draw limited attendees. They could’ve at least listed the names of the four candidates, but the food was seen as a better way to bring people in.
The underlying issue? There shouldn’t have to be a bonus for going somewhere like Career Services or the Writing Center or an affinity group. The events themselves should (ideally) have intrinsic value — instead, they are becoming commodified.
Organizations that use incentives like these commodify student attention by spending their extra funds on free food to buy attendance. This resulting increase in attendance can then be shown to funding committees as a reason to give that organization even more funding. It’s a vicious cycle that is becoming increasingly hard to break.
KSPC — the 5C radio station where I volunteer as a DJ — rarely gives out incentives for events and, in return, often receives low turnout from students not affiliated with the station. As a result, KSPC’s funding has been significantly cut by Pomona College.
Providing commercial goods at an event allows its organizers to clearly demonstrate their group’s value to the college, regardless of how related those goods are to the event.
If larger organizations are handing out free food at every event, how is a smaller organization meant to compete for students’ attention? They have to follow suit.
Pitzer Sophomore Class President Isa Iqbal PZ ’26 broke it down well.
“They incentivize people to attend events, but it creates a precedent: You only have to go to places and events when there’s incentive to go,” Iqbal said. “At some point, the bar gets really high. There’s boba, then boba plus something else.”
Because of the presence of incentivized events, any event that doesn’t offer free food is not evaluated on its intrinsic value, but also by what it fails to provide beyond it. Events are seen as lacking something — as though they are just vessels for free food. This is most notable in many holiday celebrations, which are often reduced to whatever commodity most closely resembles them by the associated affinity or event-planning group.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t blame these smaller groups. Providing incentives has become the expectation.
The very strategy meant to increase interest is becoming a strategy that stifles that interest for others. Students gradually get accustomed to the high standard that larger organizations set while every other event gets stifled by comparison, unable to compete without incentives of their own.
The boost in engagement that these organizations receive from their incentives isn’t necessarily authentic, either. If you advertise your student election debates with how good the post-event empanadas are, you shouldn’t be surprised when your audience full of empanada lovers looks like they can’t wait for the debate to be over.
Imagine what some of these organizations, particularly smaller ones, could do with the funds that they are compelled to spend on begging for attention. Simply showing up — regardless of incentives — can make an event worth attending.
Show your face at your organization’s events so that they can save that would-be incentive money on actually investing in their goals. They’re already putting on an entire event for you — the least you can do is show up when you’re interested.
Thomas Merrilees PZ ’26 is a writer and local radio co-host at KSPC with heavy motivational and executive function issues. Article related.
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