This year, April Fool's Day engaged in a little tomfoolery of its own. With daylight-saving time going into effect beginning 2 a.m. on Sunday, students and faculty alike lost an hour of valuable time.
Although some students may use the time change as a reason for missing classes and exams, Physics Prof. Dinko Pocanic does not sympathize with them.
"That's not an excuse," Pocanic said, telling a story about a former graduate student who missed an exam after failing to adjust his clock.
"Every other year, someone will saunter into class just as it's ending," Pocanic added.
Biology Prof. Michael Menaker, who has studied biological clocks in mammals, would agree with Pocanic's classroom policies.
"If you just shift an hour, I don't think it makes much difference," he said. Menaker said he would not take seriously students who claim "losing an hour" disrupts their natural cycle.
"I'd laugh at them," he added with a chuckle.
Second-year College student Mike Montana finds validity in Menaker's statement.
"Losing an hour to daylight-saving time doesn't matter because I get so little sleep anyway," Montana said.
Montana did not let the shorter night stop him from having fun either.
"It just meant I had less time to study for my test on Monday," Montana said. "It didn't affect my partying."
Instead of loathing the time change, third-year Education student Linda Allen welcomes the switch to daylight time.
"I don't mind Daylight Savings because the days will be longer now," Allen said, adding that she resets her clock before the time change occurs to avoid any hassles. "Some people wait until the next day. I actually do it the night before. I'm on top of things."
Back in time
Technology, Culture and Communication Prof. Bernie Carlson said although today's students quietly complain about the springtime adjustment, University students of long ago were not so docile.
According to Carlson, one of the major pastimes of University gentlemen was to ride up and down on the Lawn on their horses and shoot at the Rotunda's clock.
"It was their way of opposing the order of large institutions and of the coming industrialization," Carlson said.
The troublemakers were not specifically protesting daylight-saving time, which was not instituted in the United States until World War I.
"The clock represented a measured, mechanized standard time versus the rhythm that these guys had experienced growing up," Carlson said of the students who had grown up on plantations.
Apparently, University students were not the only ones causing a ruckus at the time.
"Clock shooting was a common practice in 19th century America," Carlson added.
Because of these particular students and others who shot at the clock, the clock's face was made bulletproof after the Rotunda caught on fire in 1895.
Ironically, former University administrator Paul Barringer, the man who requested that the new clock be bulletproof, shot at the clock himself while he was a University student.
Rotunda Administrator Caroline Laquatra confirmed that the University was the first university to own a bulletproof clock.
Clock shooting lost its appeal toward the end of the 19th century, according to Carlson, because the construction of railroads eventually forced the standardization of time in the United States.
Sons of businessmen replaced sons of plantation owners as students at the University, and the Rotunda's clock was no longer a symbol of cultural controversy.
Lights out
Legislators soon passed another law regulating the official time - daylight-saving time was introduced during World War I as a way of conserving energy for the war effort, Carlson said.
Pushing the official time forward by one hour during the months with more daylight causes people to spend less time awake during dark hours. As a result, there is much more daylight in the evenings due to the time change.
The change affected several aspects of daily life, including after-work recreation.
"You can't really get in a decent softball game unless you have daylight-saving time," Carlson said.
Daylight-saving time can have implications for businesses as well. When the official time returns to standard time in the fall each year, bars often stay open one extra hour. The reason for the late closing is that the time change always occurs at 2 a.m., which coincides with the required closing time for bars. The custom of remaining open the extra hour generally is illegal, but perpetrators often go unpunished.
Nicole Jackson, who works at St. Maarten's on the weekends, said the restaurant complies with the law.
"We close as if daylight-saving time didn't occur," Jackson said.
University employees hoping to get paid for an extra hour of work will be disappointed. For those who were on the clock during the time change, the phantom hour between 2 and 3 a.m. will not be counted in their paycheck.
"They'll be paid for hours actually worked," said Gary Helmuth, the University's chief human resource officer who oversees payroll operations.
Although the time change on Sunday morning meant lost sleep and extra headache for some, life went on despite the inconvenience. Those wishing to get their lost hour back will have to wait until October, when standard time besieges their clocks once again.
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