The conversation of walkability and accessibility has been a hot topic in North Carolina and the U.S. recently. Wolfpack Pickup discussed how it makes campus more accessible through its service, how it works and how it views accessibility on campus. 

This is an organization at NC State dedicated to providing golf cart transportation for students with injuries or disabilities. According to its website, former student Paige Maxon started Wolfpack Pickup in 2014, as she struggled with a physical disability and getting around campus. With the administration’s and private donors’ help, Student Government partnered with Maxon to launch a pilot program that became the organization it is today. 

Brock Derrow, the new full-time program coordinator, has been with the organization since 2020. She said Wolfpack Pickup has recently expanded its services.

“I oversee the program on a day-to-day basis, and I’m in charge of managing the student drivers, making their schedules and getting in contact with riders,” Derrow said. “I’m involved with the recruitment and staffing of hiring student workers. And also, we’ve been collaborating more, [and] we actually just expanded our services to Centennial.” 

Derrow also explained the hiring process for student drivers. She said the organization puts out applications on its website before the beginning of a semester. These applications hone in on people’s availability — essentially, the more availability they have, the more likely Derrow is to reach out. She also measures applicants based on if they’re a good fit for the program, if they would be good ambassadors for accessibility and if they’d be good drivers. 

Derrow said one of the difficulties she has faced while working for the organization is time management. This is something noted in an article by Technician from 2016. 

“We ride in 10-minute increments,” Derrow said. “Basically, you have 10 minutes to pick up someone, take them to where they need to go and then get to your next rider. So I think the most difficult part — and I’m sure the student drivers would say the same thing — is really just time management and getting to places on time because golf carts can only go like 10 miles per hour.”

Katherine Neilson, a fourth-year studying English, is currently a student driver for the organization. She explained how the day-to-day of the job looks for her. 

“I might have a shift on Monday from 3 to 6 o’clock so I’ll meet up with whoever was just working, I’ll grab the golf cart from them and then pick up whoever’s on the schedule,” Neilson said. “We try to make it as accessible as possible to everybody. I just pick up whoever has scheduled a ride and it’s been really great. I think my favorite part of the job, besides obviously driving the golf cart, which is fun in of itself, is … I’m really able to talk to a lot of diverse people from different majors and different communities on campus.”

Neilson said part of being a student driver requires you to be a people person and recognize when students want to talk and don’t want to. She said every day differs because of who you’re picking up, which is part of the fun. 

Both Derrow and Neilson said the process for scheduling a ride is easy and accessible for all students, faculty and anyone else who requires the service. 

“We’re really trying to raise awareness because not a lot of people know about who we are and what we do,” Neilson said. “You pretty much just schedule a ride and you say ‘Hey, this is the location I need to be picked up at [and] this is the location I need to be dropped off at.’ You put what time in and then you’re kind of all set, we don’t really ask for anything other than that.”

Concerning accessibility and walkability, both Derrow and Neilson had similar thoughts on what the University could improve on. 

“We have a lot of difficulty with just getting around to buildings on campus,” Derrow said. “Withers Hall, at the front of it — there’s this huge staircase, and if you need an accessible entrance, you have to go all the way to the right side because the left side only has stairs too. So I think there are definitely improvements that could be made to make NC State more accessible, [it’s] just mostly the buildings.” 

Derrow said the University could also make the campus roads more accessible for people with injuries and disabilities, offering up the idea of letting people drop off students at the building they need. She said the Brickyard is an example of where students need this help. Neilson also said the buildings and general architecture of NC State could be modified to make campus more accessible. 

“I don’t know what NC State’s response could be other than saying, ‘OK, we’re just gonna have to go building by building and implement these changes’ because yeah, we have wheelchair access in certain areas, but there needs to be more,” Neilson said. “There needs to be more [of] everything. There needs to be more elevators, more ramps, and there needs to be more awareness for Wolfpack Pickup as a whole because people, unless they’re already injured to the point where they’ve seen somebody or happened to notice one of our advertisements, they’re not scheduling with us.”

Derrow said she’d also like to encourage students, staff and faculty to use Wolfpack Pickup as much as they need to. 

“We don’t care if they have one ride a day, we don’t care if they have 10,” Derrow said. “Book as many rides as you need, because that’s what we’re here for. And if there’s ever a time that you don’t see open on the website, you can always email me and I can see what we can do. I just want people to know that we’re very willing to work with them.”

Wolfpack Pickup can be reached at wolfpackpickup@ncsu.edu, and their Instagram is @WolfpackPickup. They operate from Monday through Friday on Main Campus and Centennial Campus. Their hours are as follows: 

Main Campus

Monday to Thursday: 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Friday: 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Centennial Campus

Monday to Thursday: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Friday: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.