From your photos, it looks like there is a set of coordinates marked on the sundial. Are you able to read them? Reason being, the dial may have been designed for another location then purchase by the class of '05 and moved to where it is now. That's not unusual with sundials, especially one this handsome. If you can read the coordinates on the dial we can determine exactly where it was intended to be used.
This type of dial is called an analemic dial because the lop-sided figuure 8s on its face are analemas. It takes some pretty heavy-duty math to design one and great craftmanship to build it accurately. It appears that this one has been vandalized or broken because the gnomon is gone. The gnomon is the little thingee that actually casts the shadow. When this type dial is accurately designed and built it can tell the month of the year, and sometimes the day of the month, as well as the time of day.
In 1905 standard time zones were still a fairly new thing in the U.S. The railroads initially pushed the concept through congress in order to unravel their nightmare of a scheduling problem. Before standard time zones, each city ran on local time so, cities just a few miles apart ran on different times.
It could be that part of Ohio was in the central zone. Columbus is west of the W82.5 meridian and could therefor have been on central time. Let us know what you find out. -
Deguello