Walking alone at night through a deserted, quiet campus can sometimes be unnerving enough to make a student jumpy.

Footsteps echo in the distance and shadows loom large; suddenly the campus doesn’t seem as safe as it did in the daylight just a few hours before.

Although Department of Public Safety officials say ISU’s campus is relatively safe, those words didn’t do much to change the mind of Sarah, a junior in engineering.

While walking to Durham Hall about 12:30 a.m., March 5, Sarah said she was approached by a man who said he had a problem. Initially Sarah kept walking, but the man, who she said spoke with a strong foreign accent, continued to talk, bothering her.

Sarah told DPS officials that she then asked the man if he was OK, and he replied that he wanted to go home for a wedding but was not able to because he didn’t have enough money to finance the trip.

Sarah said while she was in front of Durham Hall, awaiting the arrival of a friend, she offered a few suggestions to the man about how to finance his trip.

At that point, she said, she was beginning to feel uncomfortable by the situation and was going to leave the area, but the man grabbed her by the upper arms and said, “You could take me home with you and make me happy.”

Sarah, who asked that her last name not be used, said she then screamed, “Could someone please help me?” A man walking in the area ran up and confronted the stranger, who then let go of her arms and ran.

According to DPS reports, the assailant is a male in his mid-20s, 5-feet 9-inches tall with a medium build, foreign accent, short black hair, a dark complexion and a short, patchy beard. There are no suspects in the case, but it is still under investigation, said John Tinker, DPS’s investigative services officer.

Though unfortunate, officials say case’s such as Sarah’s are rare.

Loras Jaeger, DPS director, said ISU’s campus “compares very favorably” to other Midwestern campuses for safety.

A report by DPS shows that cases of simple assault on campus have dropped since 1993, when 55 cases were reported. There were 43 such reports in 1995. The 1996 DPS crime statistics haven’t been released.

Aggravated assault cases are down from 13 in 1993 to two in 1995. Cases of reported rape, however, are up from none in 1993 to four cases in 1995.

Those numbers need to be looked at carefully, warns Lisa Safaeinili, manager of safety and health development for DPS, because although reported cases of simple assault may be down, cases of acquaintance rape and acquaintance assault remain steady.

A large factor in those crimes, she said, is alcohol, which plays a role about 80 percent of the time, according to a 1996 DPS survey of ISU students.

Safaeinili said a person’s chances of being assaulted are much higher by an acquaintance than by a “stranger to jump out of the bushes and grab your neck.”

Safaeinili said students should try to walk in a group after dark and stay in control of the situation.

Sarah said she now plans on having someone walk with her at night, but she said she thought nothing could happen in a well-lighted, public place like the Durham steps.