Calendar switch silences class bells at Ohio State

COLUMBUS —

A sound that has echoed through Ohio State University’s academic halls for decades have been silenced.

The bells that signal the beginning and end of classes at 30 and 18 minutes past the hour dismissed Ohio State students for the final time Friday afternoon.

They will be disabled this summer to accommodate a new semester schedule with more varied class structures.

The bell system doesn’t allow for variation, so classes beginning on the hour never used it, even on a quarter schedule. Friday concluded the last quarter in Ohio State’s history. Ohio State, the first of several universities in the state to switch to semesters this year, will begin its first summer semester June 18. By fall, all of Ohio’s public colleges will operate on semester schedules.

Disabling the bells is one piece of a years-long transition process, said Jack Miner, senior associate registrar.

“The bell system is really structured for a 48-minute class, ... but more and more, classes are meeting longer than that now,” Miner said. “As we moved to semesters, it became less practical to run a bell system in any way because it wouldn’t line up with classes in a clean way.”

Ohio State was one of the nation’s last universities operating a bell system, he said.

In 1993, Ohio State’s scheduling office considered eliminating the bell system because of class schedule changes, according to articles in The Lantern, the student newspaper. The office experimented in academic buildings and surveyed faculty and students, who said they wanted the bells to stay..

Few students and faculty spoke against eliminating the bells. Many said they consider the system necessary in a high-school setting but not in higher education. Others said instructors don’t follow the bell system.