The Huffington Post recently ran an item listing the “ten weirdest college clubs.”

I think that the word “odd” is more appropriate in this case, for “weird” has associations with perversity (though not just sexual perversity) and strange obsessions and these clubs seem, for the most part, to be much more whimsical.

The clubs include:

The Assassins Guild at MIT (at least to my knowledge, not some sort of front for recruiting government-sanctioned hitmen)

The Bigfoot Society at the University of Pennsylvania

The Campus People Watchers Club at the University of Minnesota

The Clown Nose Club at North Carolina State University

The Dignified Educated United Crust Eaters Society at Western Michigan University

The Happiness Club at Northwestern University

The Quill and the Sword Club at Brigham Young University

The Rock-Paper-Scissors Club at the University of Kentucky

The Squirrel Club at the University of Michigan

The only club in the list whose name and focus seems more snarky than whimsical is Students against Hippies in Trees at the University of California at Berkeley.

The list is presented at Huffington Post with fuller description of the clubs’ missions and activities, as well as photos. Some of the photos are, however, more enlightening than others. For instance the photo for The Squirrel Club at the University of Michigan is simply a photo of a squirrel. It’s a good-looking squirrel and may suggest the fascination that anyone might have with squirrels, but, let’s face it, the real interest here is in seeing the students in the clubs engaging in these odd activities. For instance, it is very interesting to see students in the Clown Nose Club at North Carolina State University wearing clown noses, but it would be less interesting to look at a picture of faculty and other students—passers-by– looking at students wearing clown noses (though even as I type this assertion, I am reconsidering its validity). I am assuming, of course, that the students in the Clown Nose Club wear the clown noses in public, because, at the risk of being denounced as judgmental, I think that if it is something the members do only in private, then the club is, perhaps, more “weird” than “odd.”

The slideshow is available at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/the-weirdest-college-club_n_2284310.html#slide=1833788

If you know of similarly odd student clubs on your campuses, feel free to identify them in comments on this post.