🚀 go-pugleaf

Both the answers I have seen are correct:

1) setting the time (see the `date` command) will fix the "system
   clock", and
2) the battery should be replaced.

Also, I would suppose that USC should have a network of NTP time
servers, although I can't tell you how to get in touch with them.  If
there's some sort of central computer administration, I suggest you
contact them.  DEC distributes NTP (Network Time Protocol) software
with their systems, and you can use that excellent mechanism to
synchronize your station's time and also to set it at system startup
(although you'll have to write the command to do that and install it
in rc.local)

After you've set up time service, a line in rc.local like:

[ -f /usr/local/bin/ntp-startup ] && /usr/local/bin/ntp-startup

with /usr/local/bin/ntp-startup of:

#!/bin/csh -f
set path=(/usr/bin /usr/ucb /bin /usr/etc $path)
ntp -s -f `egrep "^(peer|server)" < /etc/ntp.conf | awk '{print $2}'`

will set the clock at startup, dead battery or not.