In a bold step toward “innovation rooted in tradition,” Pingry’s leadership team announced Monday that it will replace the campus’s historic analog clock at the top of the Main Clocktower Entrance with a glowing digital display, and opponents to the decision are livid, saying that the clock will look like an oversized microwave timer.

School officials confirmed the original analog clock—beloved for its craftsmanship, symbolism, and complete inability to display seconds—has been replaced with a bright red LED panel capable of showing the time, date, and what several parents described as “the exact moment tuition payments emotionally leave the body.”

“We’re preserving the past by making sure students can now read the time like it’s the scoreboard at a JV lacrosse game in the eighties,” said one administrator.

Students praised the upgrade’s practicality, noting it will finally allow them to know precisely how late they are running, while alumni expressed excitement that the school has found a way to make a historic landmark feel “just a little more like an airport gate.”

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