Free Burritos! Free Burritos! Please come to our event! Our event is great … did we mention we have free burritos?
It started as an isolated phenomenon. One event here or there offering Chipotle burritos to those who attended. Now, it happens almost every week. From basketball games, to academic events, to speakers events, to, well, basically anything. How did this happen?
The answer is simple: Stanford students like free food, especially chipotle. That, combined with the realization of student group leaders that food will draw people to their events. (Also the opening of a chipotle one minute from campus)
I am as guilty as any. As a former Class President, i.e. class social manager/food buyer, I planned events whose sole purpose was to provide free food. But this is different. This has become so widespread that more than half of the events I get emails about offer free food, many of them Chipotle. Are Stanford students really so shallow as to only attend events because they offer free food? I think the answer is no. Stanford students are just busy people, and they are more likely to attend an event if they know they can get a meal out of it, free or not. Then, they will be multitasking by eating and attending an event.
But there is still something wrong with how common this has become. I know it is hard planning events that Stanford students will attend. But if an event’s success hinges on free burritos, then maybe the planners should rethink the event. Student groups need to get more creative in attracting people to their events. I, and I think I can safely say others involved with the Stanford Review, are tired of allowing significant portions of our special fees money to go towards Chipotle. I am far from a fiscal conservative when it comes to special fees – I believe it should be the responsibility of the ASSU to make it easier, not harder for student groups to focus on being student groups rather than on justifying their existence through a petitioning process that does not reflect the merit of a student group (check out the lively debate several weeks ago on this issue). But I think we all can agree that student groups need to spend their money more wisely, meaning less money on Chipotle.