On McKeldin Mall, time has stopped.
The sundial on the mall is gone due to repairs, making the mall’s time warp only temporary.
A few skateboarders damaged the gnomon, or the shadow caster, over the summer, leading to its removal a few weeks ago after Landscape Services noticed the damage, Assistant Director of Landscape Services Bill Monan said. University Police were notified afterward.
“They broke off some of the supporting bolts, so it wasn’t stable,” Monan said. “It was damaged to the point where it would fall over.”
Police told campus officials that the unwieldy timepiece was a “safety hazard,” Monan said.
In addition to the damage done to the gnomon itself, four roman numerals are missing from the base, most likely from students chiseling them off, Monan said.
Landscape Services employees noticed the sundial was missing three or four bolts from the base of the gnomon while leaning against the structure, Monan said.
Students have had trouble adjusting to the absence of the campus landmark, they said.
“It’s just a fixture I’ve gotten used to,” junior government and politics major Kaitlyn Shulman said. “I can’t say I’ve ever had to use it in a time of cell phones.”
Others hoped for its speedy return.
“All of a sudden, it was gone,” junior kinesiology major Seneca Wood said. “I hope they find a way to put it back.”
Monan was concerned the university would have trouble locating a craftsman in the area to fix the gnomon. He said that the university needed to find someone who could keep the “integrity of the piece,” and that he is trying to contact the same craftsman who restored the sundial in May 1991 when McKeldin Mall was renovated for the 1990 senior class gift.
Yet the repairs will be expensive because the bolts were designed specifically for the sundial years ago, making the bronze bolts that require specific welding hard to find, Monan said. And since a craftsman has not been found, Landscape Services officials still aren’t sure when the gnomon will be returned to the mall, he added.
The sundial has been a part of the campus since 1965, when it was donated as a class gift in conjunction with the astronomy and physics departments and friends of Uco Van Wijk, an astronomy professor who died in 1966.
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