If you sent your kid to Georgetown University and found out that he joined the Grilling Club, you might wonder if he was busy interrogating or cross-examining fellow students. It's not so far-fetched at a university in Washington, D.C., a town swarming with federal agents and lawyers.

	(Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette)

But he would actually be cooking with his club-mates. Yes, the Grilling Club really is about food. The society "strives to maintain the fundamental values of mankind through bonds of friendships forged in the very fires upon which we cook."

They ought to chew the fat, so to speak, with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Carnivore Club, whose mission is: "To promote dialogue between students of different majors and backgrounds ... over a nice juicy steak."

If these clubs sound unusual, just check out a few other campus club lists. The offerings range from offbeat to downright bizarre. And some of them really do beg the question: "What's in a name?"

In addition to the purely social organizations, most lists feature a compendium of Sigma Epsilon something-or-others, secret-handshake honor societies, ethnic dance troupes, obscure-major geek groups and special-interest alliances.

How special?

At Penn State's University Park campus, there's the Monster Squad, described as a collective community in which fans of horror films can "freely express their ideas and interact with other students that share their love for these films." The Monty Python Society "promotes the appreciation of British humor, as exemplified by ... 'Monty Python's Flying Circus,' and provides satiric and comedic entertainment to the campus."

No word on whether the campus is entertained or not.

UW-Madison students might get a chuckle out of the Joke Club. No, it's not a fake organization; it really is about exchanging jokes.

"Joke Club is a great way to forget about bad grades, mean [or] dirty roommates, parents, boyfriend/girlfriend issues, [a] next-door neighbor stalking you," founder Rishi Shah explains. "I just wish Joke Club could get me girls, but I guess there are some things Joke Club can't do."

Started last spring, the club already has 80 members. To join, they just have to show up. They don't even need jokes; they can just listen.

"Everyone loves hearing jokes," Shah notes rather seriously. "Everyone likes to laugh."

Some of those members are attracted by the club's Web site, which features a new joke every day.

Though most college campuses have always had wacky factions, the Internet does make it a lot easier for potential instigators -- er, members -- to hook up. Even if they don't provide meeting space or funding, most universities give clubs Web space on their servers and include them in official listings. And for a generation trained to Web browse first, they're more likely to read those lists online and click the link to a club's site.

"I think that people are doing a better job of communicating their interests to other people and finding other people who are interested in the same things," says Amy Geist, student groups coordinator at the University of Notre Dame, near South Bend, Ind.

On many campuses, that's crucial to getting official recognition and funding. At the University of Pittsburgh, clubs must have a minimum of 10 members to receive official recognition and support. Many of Pitt's 32,000 students participate in one or more of its 300 clubs.

While Notre Dame doesn't have a member minimum, it carefully examines whether a proposed club has enough relevance and individuality to merit existence. The university's 10,000 students support 273 clubs.

"We've lost an average of one or two per semester," says Geist. But for each of the 10 or 15 that died in the past three years, half a dozen were proposed in its place.

Pitt's student life administrator, Terrence Milani, says the campus easily adds 15 to 20 new clubs each year, including replacements for defunct organizations.

Although most campuses don't have official joke clubs, there's plenty of laughably bad punning going on in other groups' names -- i.e. Harvard University's Din and Tonics, who perform a cappella "with a twist" -- but cutesy acronyms are unexpectedly rare.

That's rare as in seldom, not steak, and scarce, but not extinct. At Carnegie Mellon University, there's the Carnegie Involvement Association, aka CIA. And wherever there's CIA, there could be KGB -- at CMU, anyway. According to campus newspaper staffer James Auwaerter, the club acronym doesn't stand for anything at all.

"They generally just do strange sorts of things," he reports. In 2002, KGB members marched around campus carrying signs reading "Free Kevin Mitnick," referring to the computer hacker who served five years for his crime. At a school on the forefront of computer technology and security, admiration of an infiltrating hotshot is plausible. But Mitnick was freed in 2000.

"We work hard, so we need to play hard," admits Auwaerter, a double major studying three kinds of engineering -- electrical/computer and biomedical.

Another group that couldn't resist the moniker game is the University of Mississippi's Feral University Rebel Rescuers, aka FURR. Despite the name, the group has a serious mission -- preventing euthanization of the campus's wild cat population with a birth control program of trapping, neutering and releasing the untamable felines. Rebel refers to the school mascot.

Says Auwaerter, who's in CMU's affiliate of the Camarilla, a national live-action role-playing group: "Pretty much any interest you have, you can find a club, or start one."

Judy Albin, who oversees student activities at Penn State, points out that universities are supposed to be places where students can explore their interests and pursue new experiences.

"If they can't do it here," she notes, "where can they do it?"