Police are searching for a suspect who forced a woman into a car at Goshen College and soon after sexually assaulted her.

The woman told police she was walking to her car on campus around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning when a white man forced her to drive him to another location, where he sexually assaulted her. Police have not released where the assault took place.

The school hosted an informational meeting for students, staff and faculty Tuesday afternoon to update them on the case and have pledged to maintain communication.

"You feel like a close knit community and one of the comments a student referenced towards the end of our meeting this afternoon is when one individual goes through something like this there's a sense to a degree that we all do," said Bill Born, Vice President of Student Life at Goshen College.

Students at the small college of 1,000 were shocked by the news.

"I have never actually thought about it on campus. It seems like a really calm, safe place and Goshen in general seems like a quiet place so it was a surprise to hear this," said Daisy Gaspar, a student at Goshen College.

"It's just surprising because we are such a small school and we never hear things like this happen, so to hear about it does make me scared, it makes me more cautious about where I am and making sure that I'm with someone," said student Iza Garcia.

Unfortunately Tuesday's assault was not the first for the school.

Back in 2007, two students were sexually assaulted off campus.

"It's not that frequent, statistically some of these incidents have decreased over the time here at Goshen and so when something like this happens it certainly sets you in your tracks a bit it and it's a reminder of the reality of the world around us and the things that go on," said Born.

Since the latest incident the school has suggested students walk in groups or contact the school's public safety office for an escort when walking late at night.

"The police will be patrolling campus more frequently. They typically do that already. We have brought another security person, in terms of our in house program on campus beginning tonight and we will do that for a set period of time," said Born.

The woman was treated at a local hospital and then released Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday evening police issued a release describing the suspect as a white male of medium build, approximately 26 to 27-years-old. He has short dirty blond hair and was described as having a long nose. He was last seen wearing a lightweight, dark colored jacket with plain black winter gloves.

Anyone with information can contact the Goshen Police at 574-533-8661.