Carson Bowen: A casualty of Chancellor's Walk

Residents of Wilmington may think that South College Road and Oleander Drive are the busiest, most dangerous places in town in the middle of the day.  However, for UNC Wilmington students, Chancellor’s Walk poses just as big of a daily threat to their safety.

Each day, thousands of students traverse the brick pathway that stretches from Wagoner Dining Hall to the clock tower. Every hour, as classes let out, students pour out of various buildings onto Chancellor’s Walk like ants and head in every direction.

Chancellor’s Walk instantly becomes a collage of bikers, skateboarders and pedestrians zooming about at different speeds. With so many people heading in so many different directions, collisions are a daily occurrence and often times, the cause of nasty injuries.

UNC Wilmington student, Carson Bowen, knows first hand the dangers of not being careful while going down Chancellor’s Walk.

While taking classes at UNCW last summer, Bowen recalls a time when he was involved in a collision while heading to class.

“I was late for class so I was going a little faster than normal on my skateboard,” said Bowen, who is a sophomore Communication Studies Major.

“I was merging onto Chancellor’s and it was right when classes were getting out, so it was really busy. I just took a turn too quickly and I ended up running into another guy that was going in the opposite direction. He ended up on the ground and I ended up on the ground, and we were both hurt pretty badly.

Bowen suffered a broken wrist from that accident that required surgery, and left him in a cast for eight weeks.

“I have the scars to prove it,” he said.  It was an ordeal that made him more aware of people around him while on Chancellor’s Walk.

“I’m always checking both ways now whenever I first get on Chancellor’s,” Bowen said. “ I try to give people as much space as possible whenever I have to go around them because I know how bad the damage can be whenever you run into somebody.”

UNCW Campus Police force is constantly looking for ways to make Chancellor’s safer for students, but it’s difficult to enforce rules on something that isn’t a road.

“I think it just comes down to some people not paying attention to other people around them,” Bowen said. “It would also help if people would get their noses out of their phones while they’re walking. I see people run into others all the time just because they aren’t looking where they are going. I think that would make a huge difference and cut down on the number of crashes.”

Although Chancellor’s Walk can be dangerous, it is a main thoroughfare on UNCW’s campus. For the time being, students will just have to look both ways, and stay in their toes.