\Are you going to give me my calculus notes?"" Dina Marie asked the man who had just sexually assaulted her. He was about to let her out of his car onto campus. He had already handed over her purse after rummaging through it. She took her notes, which had been lying on the back seat.
When the man let her go, she ran from his car and never looked back. A hysterical, trembling Dina Marie ran up to a girl walking alone and pleaded for help. Immediately, the girl guided her toward her dorm.
As Dina Marie entered the doorway, a fellow resident, unaware of what had happened, tapped Dina Marie's shoulder to say hello. The touch startled an already panic-stricken Dina Marie. She remembers thinking, ""Oh no, he is coming back to get me!""
Immediately Dina Marie went to her housefellow's room where she called the police and her mother.
For the rest of the night and into the morning, Dina Marie spent hours answering questions for the police and at the hospital. She underwent tests for STIs, AIDS and pregnancy. Dina Marie suffered through an examination while a doctor collected evidence of her rape.
Dina Marie was returned home at 5 a.m. Thursday and collapsed into her bed.
Just four days later on Monday, Dina Marie took her calculus exam. The following day she took a chemistry exam. She wanted nothing more than to get back on track. She ended up with a 3.6 GPA in the fall 2006 semester.
When the university was notified of what happened to Dina Marie, she met with Assistant Dean Yolanda Garza and was excused from classes until she was ready to go back.
Dina Marie said the university was helpful in the weeks following Nov. 29 but that her support really came from her compassionate and understanding professors.
""The people I interacted with every day made me feel better,"" Dina Marie said. ""The cards that I got, the well wishing that I got, and the few people that called me—it just made me feel so much better to know that the staff isn't just there until the end of their lecture and then gone. I was lucky to have people who understood so well.""
Dina Marie said her professors were not only accommodating with make-up work but also provided her with extra help and personal support.
Readjusting to her academic schedule wasn't easy. Memories lingered on.
""You don't realize how much downtime you have during the day,"" Dina Marie said. ""All of those 15 minutes between walking to class, and that whole time brushing your teeth in the morning—those are the moments it really hits you.""
It was ""literally scary"" walking to and from classes, she said. Cars, people resembling her attacker and puffy coats triggered memories and anxiety.
One day Dina Marie was taking a make-up quiz in a large lecture hall on campus. A man who resembled her assaulter, dressed in a puffy coat with a large fur hood, sat down in the seat next to her.
Her heart raced, she struggled to breathe. She got up and left the room without finishing the quiz.
Nights were especially difficult for Dina Marie.
""The first two months after it happened, my roommate let me sleep with the lights on every night because I thought about it all the time,"" Dina Marie said. ""I would have my window locked, my door locked, my roommate here and my light on, and I couldn't help but think about it.""
""That time when you're laying in bed about to go to sleep is when it is the worst because you have nothing to do. You have nothing else to concentrate on. You want to go to sleep, you know you have to wake up early, but it just comes into your head.""
Dina Marie became afraid to go outside by herself. At first, she was scared to walk to classes even during the day and would ask students to walk with her.
Now, Dina Marie makes sure she never walks alone. Friends walk with her, her mom picks her up or she uses SAFEwalk or SAFEride:
""I think the SAFEwalk program on campus is the best thing ever. I actually got a SAFEwalk home last night from volunteering,"" she said. ""It's just so nice to have two people walking you home. The whole time you don't have to think ... how dark it is or if people are walking behind you.""
Still, Dina Marie said the university and police need to be doing more to make sure everybody is safe.
""I think it is the university's job to care about every student, whether it happens to one or one hundred students,"" Dina Marie said. ""I want to see a difference on campus when I am walking around. I want to see more buses and more opportunities to walk in groups of people.""
Many students don't wait for buses at night, Dina Marie said, because they come less frequently than they do in the day.
""Nighttime is when kids really should be taking the bus,"" Dina Marie said. ""If I had waited for the bus, it never would have happened to me. Probably would have happened to somebody else, but it would never have happened to me.""
More police would make the campus feel safer, Dina Marie said, but students can be individual police officers by staying aware of their surroundings and looking out for everyone's well being.
""There are 40,000 kids that go to school here,"" Dina Marie said. ""There isn't a reason that kids should feel like they're forced to walk anywhere by themselves ... or feel like they have to put themselves in compromising situations.""
Dina Marie supports the $100,000 Downtown Safety Initiative passed by the City Council last month, but thinks Madison's State Crime Lab needs more funding immediately. Processing of DNA takes longer because of a swell of cases that has accumulated at the lab. If the backlog didn't exist, Dina Marie said her attacker would have been caught before he raped another girl, just ten days after she was raped.
""It wouldn't have happened to [name deleted] if the [State Crime Lab] wasn't so backed up. He already had a criminal record,"" Dina Marie said.
Dina Marie was upset when the police told her it would take several weeks to get the DNA results back.
Cases are analyzed in order of importance, starting with homicides, then armed robbery and sexual assault. After another student was abducted and sexually assaulted on Carroll Street Dec. 9, Dina Marie's case was moved up on the lab's list. When the DNA evidence was processed, it helped police to arrest a suspect.
Still, Dina Marie said students must take responsibility for their own safety. She believes everybody needs to have a sense of personal responsibility and self-protection.
Individuals need to be aware. Students walking by themselves, especially at night, wearing iPods and earmuffs are completely oblivious to the world around them and are vulnerable to attack, Dina Marie said.
""Pay more attention. That's every individual person's own responsibility,"" Dina Marie said. ""You can't stop all of the bad people in the world. Whether it's your fault or not, you should still take precautions.""
Read the conclusion of Dina Marie's
story in tomorrow's Daily Cardinal.
