At his first FallFest in 2018, second-year graduate student Nick Chappell heard a group of students advertising SafeWalk shout, "Who wants to get paid to walk?" Now, he is the program’s director.
SafeWalk is a student-run program that aims to provide safe company at night for students who may feel unsafe walking home.
On request, two SafeWalk student employees will travel alongside the student until they arrive at their destination, operating within a rough 1.5 to 2-mile radius of Davis Library.
“I know a lot of people, if they’re walking alone at night, it can be a scary experience,” Danielle Kennedy, a SafeWalk employee, said. “UNC does a good job of trying to keep the campus safe, but you can’t always guarantee that everything’s going to be good.”
Planning for the program began in 2009, and its first operational semester was the spring of 2010. Chappell said around that time, there was a general concern for student safety following the 2008 murder of then-Student Body President Eve Carson. The program began to operate under UNC Police in the spring of 2022.
Chappell said that it is a common misconception that the walkers are volunteers — they are paid employees. All walkers are “Responsible Employees,” which means they are required to report any instance of discrimination, harassment, sexual and interpersonal violence or stalking. Students working for SafeWalk also undergo a standard University background check before being hired.
Recent uniform upgrades, such as new branded reflective polos and radios, are helping to make people aware of the legitimacy of the program, Chapell said.
“We’re just trying to build that image that we are an official University-sponsored program, not just some random people who decided ‘Hey, this is something I want to do,'" Chappell said.
