As a loyal Penn Stater, I have come to appreciate the history and tradition of our great university. Of all the symbols associated with Penn State, certainly the most majestic is Old Main.

As I walk past the majestic center of Penn State on my way to class, I often stop for a moment to enjoy the ambiance that surrounds the building. The atmosphere there is thick; the air itself is blue and white. The columns, the clock, the sundial, the bell tower and the chimes, which slowly count down my remaining hours in State College in 15-minute increments.

Few things affect as many people on campus as the Old Main chimes. Campus time has been measured by no other standard for decades. At first, the bell that still resides in the Old Main bell tower rang to announce the time, falling silent after the Class of 1937 donated a set of chimes to announce the passing hours. These chimes were used for many years, but the Office of Physical Plant eventually removed them because they were difficult to maintain and replacement parts could not be obtained.

The chimes you hear nowadays every 15 minutes are not real chimes — they are instead a recording of a set of tubular chimes made by Penn State Professor Dan Armstrong. This recording has been placed on a computer chip that creates the sounds you hear from the speakers on the roof of Old Main.

Unfortunately, the chimes have been letting me down recently. At times the chimes fail to sound, or sound the wrong time. For example, recently I was out on the Old Main lawn with some friends late one evening.

As it approached midnight, we noticed that over the past hour or so the chimes had failed to sound. The chimes finally did sound at midnight, but the bell that counts off the hours rang 14 times. After this unusual display, the chimes again fell silent, failing to chime over the next half hour.

This is not a new phenomenon. Several times over the past few years the chimes have failed to operate properly. How can Penn State, a leading research and engineering institution, fail to find a system that will consistently ring the chimes on time? One would think that the powerful minds at Penn State could devise a foolproof system to announce the time correctly to the campus community.

I went directly to the Office of Physical Plant for some answers in regards to the failure of the chimes to consistently sound properly, and the friendly folks at OPP assured me in several interviews that they are aware of the problems with the current system, and that they are exploring various options to eradicate the bugs in the Old Main sound system.

They were quick to point out that the current system is not perfect, but it holds some advantages over real chimes. The current system allows OPP to control the volume of the recorded chimes, whereas real chimes might be so loud as to become annoying to those that work eight hours a day inside Old Main. There are also plans for a system that will alert OPP when the chimes malfunction — currently they rely on feedback from the campus community to alert them when problems arise.

I realize that after being here awhile, one tends to tune out the chimes, much as freshmen tune out the Blue Band practicing and that farmy smell when living in East Halls. But there is something about the stately tones that emanate from Old Main that distinguish Penn State from other wannabe colleges.

It's hard to imagine Penn State without the graceful notes of our chimes, even if they are recorded. In a way, the chimes are much like the rest of Penn State — conservative, traditional, admired, yet imperfect. And as I continue to count down the days until my departure State College, I'll be listening for the chimes to mark off each passing hour.

Hopefully, they will not let me down again.