(U-WIRE) ATHENS, Ohio - Free food is not the only thing attracting students to campus-sponsored events.
Some colleges and universities have gone as far as to offer free tuition and books to students who attend a certain number of campus events.
Students attending eight school-sponsored events per semester at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, get a chance for free books or tuition.
At Texas Christian University, students keep track of their attendance to social, academic and religious events. Once enough points are accumulated, these points can translate into a notation on the student's transcript as evidence of the student's extracurricular activities.
But Ohio University's approach to attracting students isn't that extreme.
"We are aware of what some other schools are doing," said Mike Sostarich, interim vice-president for student affairs. "We are aware that we need to offer more activities on the weekends than we have in the past."
But OU President Robert Glidden said in an e-mail message that OU student participation in campus-sponsored events is good. He said schools that offer "freebies" to increase campus participation do not have near the student involvement OU does.
Glidden said although it cannot be proved, he believes OU is the most "student engaged campus in Ohio."
Even without elaborate incentives, many of last year's campus-sponsored activities were well attended, said Terry Hogan, interim dean of students.
Another perk of increased student involvement is a possible alternative to alcohol.
"We're going to see a reduction in high-risk drinking over time," Hogan said.
Of the 2,000 to 3,000 events, most were held on the weekdays, Hogan said.
This year there is a push to get more activities in evenings and on weekends, he said.
"The goal is to provide more opportunities and more choices," Sostarich said.
Several factors are involved in increasing the student involvement in campus-sponsored events.
It takes both incentives and the right programs to get students to go, Sostarich said.
"We're more apt to offer entertainment at no cost as opposed to tuition or something like that," Sostarich said.
Recently Student Affairs received additional funding and the ability to fund social events they could not fund before. New programs were started Sunday and will continue throughout the quarter.
These new programs were made possible because of increases to the Student Activities Commission of the Ohio University Student Senate, the University Programming Council, Campus Recreation and Student Affairs, Hogan said.
"Our first attempt was Sunday. I was thrilled with the turn out," Sostarich said. "We were pleased."
The new programs were created by utilizing student feedback.
Methods including listening to students at forums that offered the incentive of free food, Hogan said.
Hogan said Student Activities are trying to decrease reliance on advertisement to spread the word about programs, and instead try to appeal more to student groups, like residence halls or Greek organizations.