A club without limits: Student group tries a bit of everything

Kansas University is home to student clubs for everything from chess and hip-hop to trumpets and tae kwon do.

But Teresa Lo’s group – the TLO Club – proves a student organization doesn’t need to have a central theme.

“No one really has any idea what the TLO Club is,” said Katherine McCue, a club member. “Even looking on the Web site, they wouldn’t necessarily know what was going on.”

Lo, the KU junior who founded the organization in her own image, described the group as a random interest club.

“Just whatever we’re feeling is the focus, I guess,” she said.

Lo’s club is recognized as an official student organization at KU. Lo said it has more than 80 members active on a discussion board, and also has officers and foreign correspondents who are extending the club globally.

The club’s backbone is a Web site, www.xanga.com/tloclub/, which reveals club members’ forays into various topics. Among the latest: TLO Club members are learning from Paris Hilton “how to become fabulous.”

And in light of the recent controversies surrounding a religious studies professor, the TLO Club announced that it wants its own controversy. But because many topics, like religion and abortion, have been covered by other clubs, the TLO Club is waging war against all of the “Haters.”

Founders of the TLO Club, from left, are Kansas University students Justina Patterson, Teresa Lo, Stephen Hardimon and Katherine McCue.

“We want to stop all the haters,” Lo said.

Aaron Quisenberry, associate director of KU’s Student Involvement and Leadership Center, said there had been quirky KU clubs in the past. One club aimed to make the Guinness Book of World Records with the longest Slip ‘N Slide down Campanile Hill.

“I don’t think they were ever successful in that,” he said.

TLO stands for the randomly devised title Trees Learn Osmosis. (Lo’s nickname is T-Lo.) The club was born about a year ago.

“I had the idea: ‘What if I just formed a club with my name on it?'” Lo said. “Who would join?”

Lo had been in many KU clubs, she said, but couldn’t find one that suited all of her interests. And she didn’t have the time to take part in 20 different clubs.

Enter TLO.

“It started off as kind of a joke club,” Lo said. “It’s still pretty funny.”

Stephen Hardimon, a junior, serves as treasurer. He makes sure there is money for cookies at meetings.

McCue, a junior, is the club’s secretary, a title she admits comes with no duties.

Interests change with the whims of the TLO Club members. They’ve dabbled in battling corporate America. They’ve also had a recycling day. And Hardimon has led science experiments, including a test to see how long a fast-food burger could last beneath a bed. The experiment lasted months.

“We’re very curious,” Lo said.

The club returns to its cookie theme every once in a while. Cookies in bountiful quantities, served with a bit of silliness, but without pretension, are something the club can offer to others. And they also have ideas for more activities next semester.

“I have big plans for the TLO Club,” Lo said, “and maybe we’ll achieve those plans.”