During her freshman year four years ago, UW-Madison student Dani Koel would routinely stroll across campus at all hours of the night before returning to her residence in the lakeshore dorms.
And while she was often alone, she can’t recall ever being scared or even nervous, the 21-year-old senior from the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield said in an interview at a State Street coffee shop.
“For some reason, Madison seemed safer then,” says Koel, who handles several duties with the university’s SAFEwalk Escort program, which between sunset and 1 a.m. provides a pair of student escorts to just about any destination on campus.