When residents of Grant North have time to eat breakfast, they usually do not expect to be late. The clocks in the dining hall should be accurate, but they have been wrong for over two years, a problem not uncommon to the rest of campus.

Kitchen worker Margaret Murphy has a unique vantage point. As the attendant who checks residents into the dining area for breakfast and lunch, she has seen some odd student reactions due to the clocks being incorrect.

“They’re eating breakfast, and they jump up and fly out, because they think they’re an hour late,” Murphy said.

She also said the clocks have been wrong for four semesters, although the amount of time they are wrong by varies.

“This was fixed for several hours one day,” she said.

Building services worker Jeff Askins said clocks are not set manually within the residence halls, at least not that he has ever seen.

In fact, nobody working in Grant North’s dining hall seems to know how the clocks are set, even though everyone seems to know about the problem. Among staff, it has become a private joke.

Some workers report the problem as a common one around campus, but a short tour through DuSable, Watson, Reavis, Cole, Davis and Swen Parson halls and the Holmes Student Center revealed every clock on the journey was within a five-minute interval.

This might suggest the problems are not campus-wide, but the electricians at the Physical Plant would say differently.

“It’s been a headache,” said Michael Saari, associate director at the Physical Plant. Saari said one of his electricians spends about 80 percent of his time fixing clocks on campus.

“It’s a lot more than just opening the clock and turning the hands,” Saari said.

Since most of the clocks are electro-mechanical, the time can be set from a master clock location, but the system is over 30 years old and well past its life expectancy. Saari said he receives calls weekly from buildings all over campus regarding hundreds of clocks that need to be reset.

Saari would like to see the system updated, but he believes finding the right system will be difficult. His office has been looking at various satellite and wireless technology, as these would cost the least to implement.

Technology is as much a problem as it is a benefit, Saari said. He said the best option for NIU is a system that will not be obsolete in two years. A major hurdle in the decision is waiting to see which programs will prevail technologically and which ones will fizzle.

The project also would have to be implemented in multiple phases since so many buildings would be affected.

As for now, Grant North residents still get around in a timely fashion, despite the glaring error on the wall.

Sophomore marketing major Kristen Highland and sophomore special education major Jill Benbennick said they look at the minute hand to make sure they don’t miss the bus.