Evan Weber
Sports Editor
Do you really believe hordes of students are willing to endure hour-long academic talks for mere morsels of grade-improving points? The truth is much simpler: people who attend talks actually want to listen.
While extra credit may be a minor motivating factor, it does not primarily fuel attendance. To address the question “Is extra credit fueling talk attendance?”, we need to examine two specific issues.
First, does extra credit cause students who wouldn’t normally attend a talk to suddenly go? Consider an economics professor who offers extra credit to students for attending a seminar about the relationship between socialism and Catholic morality.
If extra credit were truly the driving force behind attendance, we would expect to see a significant increase in numbers compared to a typical seminar. However, that’s not the case at Franciscan University.
Attendance often hinges more on the speaker and subject matter than on the incentive of extra credit. For instance, the Fieldhouse was packed wall-to-wall when Jordan Peterson came to speak. The allure of a prominent speaker far outweighs the appeal of a few extra points.
The second issue involves the motivation of students who do attend talks. Using the economics example again, if a group of students attends the seminar out of genuine interest in the topic and only happens to benefit from extra credit, we cannot say that extra credit fueled their attendance. These students would likely have attended regardless of the incentive.
For extra credit to truly drive attendance, it must be the primary reason students listen to these speakers. While it’s important to acknowledge the role of extra credit—everyone loves those extra points—it simply isn’t a strong enough motivator for students to show up to academic talks on a large scale at Franciscan. Some may attend for the extra points, but that’s not enough to significantly impact overall attendance.