[dget]

I've been working on something pretty similar at my school, and I think we've had some pretty good results so far.

I think the first step is to find the students who really are interested in programming/hacker culture/whatever you call it, and get close with them. If you start small, maybe just a couple of friends doing things together, it'll be a good start. Other people may then be interested in seeing what's up.

Another thing is that I'd suggest "events" vs. meetings. A couple of things we've done is start a bi-annual series of hackathons. The first one in the fall drew 40 students. The second one, which had lower prizes, ended up drawing over 100. It takes a bit of time, but I think you can snowball it into something bigger.

Another event we've found really useful is a weekly thing where we take a classroom in one of the CS buildings, and designate it for a night for people to code. We order food and stuff, usually 15-20 people show up every week.

You're not going to necessarily change the vast majority of students that don't care, but if you can join everyone else together, and maybe draw some people who are on the fringe one way or another, you can have something pretty cool.