Walking to class, climbing stairs and using public restrooms are things most of us take for granted, but even these little tasks can be difficult for people who are handicapped.

The Student Association-operated Handivan and another NIU wheelchair-accessible vehicle were displayed Thursday afternoon in the Martin Luther King Commons as part of “Unity in Diversity” week.

The SA Handivan is equipped with hydraulic wheelchair lifts and provides service to 23 handicapped students.

The Handivan averages about eight rides per day, but will expand its service during the winter months, said NIU Transportation Director Bill Finucane. Most of these rides are “more for social needs,” he said. Mobilly impaired students sometimes need rides to go shopping and visit their friends, as well as to go to classes.

The university recently purchased another wheelchair-accessible vehicle for about $40,000 as a back-up for the SA-operated van. The new vehicle seats 19 people and also will be used for school-related travel, Finucane said.

To make students more aware of handicapped accessibility on campus, SA President Huda Scheidelman and SA Mass Transit Adviser Dave Pack spent several hours in wheelchairs to experience campus life, for a little while, as a mobilly handicapped person does.

“It has been enlightening,” Pack said, sitting in his wheelchair in the Martin Luther King Commons.

The SA officials took turns being wheelchair-bound. Scheidelman said she was in a wheelchair for about four hours yesterday before it was someone else’s turn.

Although NIU is considered the second-most handicapped accessible university in Illinois, that “may not mean much,” Pack said. Some of the newer buildings on campus are equipped with handicapped ramps and elevators, but older buildings are not, he said. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale is the most accessible campus.

The campus could be more accessible with small repairs that “are inexpensive and take only a little time,” Scheidelman said. One obstacle for mobilly impaired students is a small door ledge at the entrance to the Pow Wow cafeteria. “Just an inch is a major deal,” Pack said.

The Pow Wow entrance is the only way people in wheelchairs can enter the Holmes Student Center, Scheidelman said.

The Student Center might be “the most inaccessible building in Illinois,” Scheidelman said. “It’s almost impossible to get into the Student Center.”

Small obstacles like cracks in sidewalks and elevator buttons which are too high are problems for mobilly impaired people. “I’ve gotten used to this campus, but the sidewalks really bother me,” said Susan Haas, Mass Transit board member.