The moment students step foot on campus, the clock tower grabs their eyes and rings out its tunes, lighting up the sky with different colors.

The tower, part of the Dean B. Ellis Library, was built as part of former university president Eugene Smith’s idea to create a focal point for the campus.

“That was part of his vision as kind of a centerpiece of campus and a visual image that, as it turns out, has been used a lot in the media, not only to identify Arkansas State University but Jonesboro,” said Jeff Bailey, library director.

The clock tower was funded by the College Savings Bond Act, which allows colleges to fund projects approved by the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 

The bell tower originally opened with four bells, but that number has increased to 24.  

“There’s a keyboard, where manually if someone really wanted to, although it’s very difficult, you can play the bells live,” Bailey said. “They program and record certain things that are then played back on schedules and whatnot.”

The tunes are programmed to play whenever students are changing classes. The music choices change with the seasons, as tunes are programmed for different times and synced with a calendar.

For over 15 years, various professors within the Music Department have coordinated the tunes played. Timothy Crist, Ph. D., a professor of theory of composition, currently oversees the program.

Bailey asked Crist to direct the bell tower in Fall 2023. He said while he hasn’t arranged any music for it yet, he intends to do so in the future and plans to involve student compositions.

“I have one group of students that are very much into video game soundtracks and writing video game music,” Crist said. “We all play a lot of video games these days, so it’d be nice to hear a little ‘Zelda’ or ‘Mario’ coming from the clock tower every once in a while just for fun.”

Calem Sykes, a first-year music education and composition double major from Jonesboro, is one of the students composing music for the tower. He said while the music he is working on isn’t finished yet, he aims to finish it sometime next year.

One of the pieces Sykes is working on is a rendition of “Dire Dire Docks” from “Super Mario 64.”

“It sounds like it would fit on a clock tower,” Sykes said. “If you listen to the original it’s similar to an electric piano sound. Timbrely speaking, they’re very similar, piano and clock tower bells, at least in my ear.”

The library has continued to update its technology, with funding primarily coming from donations. The keyboard console has been upgraded to be programmable and play and store audio files. 

When the tower was first built, Facilities Management would manually place different colored filters on the floodlights. However, the tower now uses programmable LED lights. 

“Someone would have to get up on the roof and put a red filter for the football team winning the game,” Bailey said. “Now it’s much more automated. It’s really cool because there’s so many different colors.”

The tower is lit for game victories, holidays, commencements and various awareness causes. Colors are approved and coordinated through University Communications. 

Bailey added the wind can cause the hands on the clock face to read incorrect times. 

“The power and speed of the wind, that at that height, which is about 170 feet above the ground, will either push the minute hand forward or hold it back,” Bailey said.

To combat this, Facilities Management sets the hands to the correct time a few times a year. 

Crist said composing for the bells gives his students great satisfaction and improves the university experience overall. 

“We are all creative-minded individuals and it’s always nice to find any challenge ahead to kind of drive our interests and create enough complexity in our lives, so that we have a variety of things to choose from in order to create art,” Crist said. “The bell tower is just another thing that we can add to all of our experience. It’s something that we all experience during the day. All of our university community enjoys the bell tower’s music all day long.”

Categories: Life