It was supposed to be a collaboration among schools, NYUAD and the Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, together for a night of shared poetry on March 13. The event was primarily advertised on Facebook and of both schools’ populations, 205 people RSVP’d. But when the night arrived, NYUAD sophomore Zahida Rahemtulla found herself with only one other companion boarding the bus for the event.

“I think from NYUAD there were at least 15 [committed], if not more,” Rahemtulla said of the number of attendees she was expecting. As a result, because of the large number of people who signed up, Rahemtulla organized transportation accordingly for the event.

“They were expecting a lot of us, even more than 15,” she continued, describing the scene at the Sorbonne. “They had a lot of food for us. There were a lot of empty seats for us and a big banner. And gifts, like a thanks for coming kind of thing.”

The gifts included Sorbonne t-shirts, bags and souvenirs. In addition to food and giveaways, the Sorbonne had also organized a special welcome in which the director gave a speech for NYUAD, directed at what ended up being just two students in the crowd.

At NYUAD, students have the opportunity to attend events within the university as well as in the Abu Dhabi community. In fact, NYUAD has created the Student Portal — a website designed to list these events. Students are one click away from filling in the next empty slot in their calendars. The portal is flooded with events on a daily basis, giving students opportunities to explore cultural, spiritual and athletic events.

But, a culture of overcommitting and then not attending may be developing among students at the university.

NYUNY senior and resident assistant Chris Fanikos encountered this dilemma when he and two other RAs organized a trip to Al Ain for a day of rockwall climbing. The trip was carefully planned, with every detail including transportation and time commitments accounted for. After receiving positive feedback from residents, Fanikos made sure that all potential climbers knew of the time-intensive nature of the trip. Despite the notification and continued enthusiasm, few residents actually showed up.

“We were expecting more than three people,” he said. “We were expecting close to eight. So we got less than 50 percent to show up. It was kind of disheartening.”

Fanikos arranged the trip with NYUNY junior Dylan Maurer and residential education fellow Robert Leary.

“Dylan put in so much effort — looking into it, talking to people, buying the tickets, transportation,” said Fanikos. “We did provide the financial side and it was really disheartening to spend all that money on what sounded like a great opportunity, and we were told was a great opportunity by people, and then not really have much of a show.”

Fanikos’s experience reflects a common challenge that many organizers and programmers face. Even with a free activity such as rockwall climbing, which did not demand a co-pay, it was difficult to rally enough people to commit to the event.

Fanikos, who has experience organizing events at the Washington Square campus, said that he finds the retention problem to be more prevalent at the Abu Dhabi campus.

“I saw it in New York as an RA but to a lesser extent,” he said. “It’s not like here when more than 50 percent of the people aren’t showing up. And it’s not just for these big events, but it’s for these tiny events when people say they will show up and don’t.”

These events bombard the student population with flashy Facebook campaigns and enticing taglines such as “free” or “dinner included,” yet people still fail to show. Students assert that one reason there is a lag in attendance is, paradoxically, due to the great excitement the events generate.

Freshman Ahmad Al-Tunaji is always interested in the events offered at NYUAD and therefore has a constantly packed schedule. As a freshman adapting to a college schedule, it is challenging for Al-Tunaji to balance his commitments and sometimes finds himself overbooked and unable to attend events he had signed up for.

“When I come back from class I find that I have so many essays to write, and sometimes I forget so I won’t email [the event co-ordinators] earlier. So I will usually email them the same day and say sorry I can’t come,” Al-Tunaji said.

Other students, after adjusting to this sign-up culture, realize that by committing to an event, they are doing little more than simply reserving a space for themselves just in case they decide to attend. Students often face little or no repercussions for signing up and then not attending.

“Last semester I signed up for so many NYUAD Institute events and the first two or three weeks I was so scared that if I don’t go I would somehow get punished,” freshman Abhijai Garg said. “Eventually I realized that no one cared.”

As freshmen acclimate to college, however, they start to realize what is reasonable to sign up for in terms of time commitments and managing their priorities.

Freshman Louis Plottel admits, “I sign up quite sparingly. I only sign up when I am really interested. If I am moderately interested then I will wait until the day before.”

Plottel’s careful judgment helps save resources that would otherwise be wasted on students who fill sign-up spots but don’t attend. For organizations such as the Hall Council, which is responsible for arranging Residential Education events throughout the year, low attendance rates are an expense in both time and money, especially when the event is expecting a large attendance.

Freshman Megan Vincent, Director of Communications on the Hall Council Executive Board, hopes that in the future, students will have more foresight.

“Students need to realize that not coming to an event when you've RSVP’d is wasting the time of both faculty and students and costing money.”

Programmers like Hall Council attempt to boost attendance rates by requiring formalities like a co-pay, which demands that students pay for a small portion of the ticket or event price. While co-pays were effective on the New York campus, Fanikos said that it is not a preferable method.

“We would like to avoid co-pays when necessary because that could push certain people who are financially constrained from joining an event,” he said. “But, I don’t see other ways to really go about it.”

In an attempt to garner students’ attention and ensure consistent attendance, sophomore and SIG leader Bobby Haynes offers his members Indian food from the local restaurant Al Ekram. This has become a common practice among SIG leaders, who entice members with food. Haynes is leader of the Pre-Health Advisory Board SIG, which aims to help pre-health Students in exploring career choices and eventually filling out medical school applications.

“Honestly I think people are starting to figure out that there are ways to get around the problem by getting food,” Haynes said.

Sophomore Laura Evans, an active member of Hall Council, is already looking towards the future and how this attendance problem could affect the university as the student population grows.

“People put a lot of time and energy into these events,” she said. “Groups like Hall Council and Student Government, and departments like Athletics and [Residential Education] aren't going to be able to afford keep putting money into events if people aren't responsible enough to honour their commitments.”

Hall Council is in charge of orchestrating large events open for the entire student body, including the “Skyfall” screening, a glamorous evening in which students gathered together for an exclusive viewing of the latest James Bond movie. As a result, the organization is familiar with the costs involved in university-wide events, and the number of resources needed to accommodate each student that signs up to attend.

“People don't realise how much money gets wasted if they don't show up,” Evans said. “Food, transport, tickets, it all adds up.”

Given the prevailing problem among SIGs, the Student Government has stepped in to try and create a way to encourage more students to be cognizant of the commitments they make to attend events. Alternate Senator and freshman Clara Correia is working with Class of 2016 Representative and freshman Lingliang Zhang to create a system that allows for communication between attendee and program organizer through Google Calendar.

“I have been working with Ling partially to address this issue through the creation of a calendar system that will include all student-organized events,” Correia said. “Students would be able to quickly see scheduled movie screenings, talks, debates etcetera and to RSVP through this interface. Once they do respond, the event is automatically added to their Google Calendar. If they delete the event from their personal calendar at any point, the RSVP will is automatically cancelled, and the person who created the event is able to track that on real time.”

Additionally, Correia sees this program as a way to alleviate the problem among SIGs over-programming. By placing all events on one calendar, students can avoid planning events on the same day as other major events.

As the school continues to expand, new ideas begin to form of ways to alleviate problems incurred from the over-enthused students who commit to too many events. Correia and Zhang’s program shows that technology, coupled with sensibility of time management, can lead to innovative ways of conserving university resources and limiting students to signing up for only the events that are feasible, given their daily schedules.