Self-Defense Classes Gain Popularity on College Campuses

Straddling five blocks of Broad Street in gritty North Philadelphia, Temple University is pretty much as urban as you can get. The dense campus, filled with a mix of old and new construction connected by busy boulevards and tree-lined walkways, sits in a rough neighborhood. And the students who attend the school attest to being up for the challenge—tough, vigilant, and hardworking.

But even with these qualities, a little extra toughening up never hurt anybody. Which in part is why, when self-defense courses are offered each semester for two college credits, women at Temple jump at the opportunity to sign up, although it might mean "green-carding in"—requesting the instructor's permission.

Temple students aren't alone. Self-defense classes are part of the curriculum at many colleges—some for credit, some for fun, some coed, and some just for women. They're offered at schools both urban and rural, and they teach a mix of physical skills and life lessons. They've been a popular addition for students who are concerned about their own safety. Temple instructor Michelle Harmon acknowledges that some students take the course there because it's their first time living in a city. But she adds: "This course is not in response to any kind of crime activity or anything along those lines. This course is geared more toward empowering women in their general pursuit for their life skills."

On the last day of class before finals, Harmon addresses two dozen young women sitting, legs outstretched, on the floor of a gymnasium at Temple. "Overall, over the course of the class, do you feel more empowered to make decisions for your safety?" she asks. The answer from her students is a series of emphatic nods.

RADical approach

Harmon's class is part of a national self-defense curriculum called the Rape Aggression Defense Systems program, or RAD, that's taught at 1,200 universities and colleges around the country. It was developed at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., in 1989 by a campus police officer, Larry Nadeau. "The RAD system made self-defense education really an option, where it was not in the past," Nadeau says. "Educating your public about the potential threats that exist socially on and around campus is pivotal."

In class, RAD students learn a combination of typical physical moves—wrist grabs, knee strikes, and so on—along with college-oriented life lessons. Temple's Harmon sums up the lessons she is teaching this way: "What this course helps them do is look at their decisions: Is this a wise decision for me? Should I be going out with this person? Should I trust this person to hold my drink while I go to the bathroom?"

In fact, many instances of crime on college campuses involve alcohol. Harmon reviews an assignment where students go to Spring Fling, a popular campus festival, and observe their classmates' behavior, which often includes daytime drinking. (Earlier in the same semester, students had also gone to a bar, sober, to watch their peers, in that case during spring break.) "It definitely made me think a lot of what you looked like when you were drinking," says Sage Sinopoli, a senior majoring in broadcast telecommunications and mass media.

Harmon then switches gears to review a more physical component of her class—a simulated attack in which each woman is grabbed by heavily padded male aggressors and has to fight her way out. Students typically don't hold back. "When I had a hold of them, I realized I was grabbing them forcefully and really knocking them on the ground with head butts and kicks and really trying to beat the crap out of them," Elizabeth Lovejoy Knauss, a broadcast major, tells her classmates.

Harmon calls the simulation an opportunity for the women to use their skills in a "pseudo" real-life experience. "When I say 'pseudo,' we aren't going to jump them out on the street," she says. "It's a very controlled environment."

Avoidance techniques

Three hundred miles west, at another urban campus—this one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's second-biggest city—self-defense students do, literally, get jumped on the street. At the University of Pittsburgh, male and female students take self-defense courses together using a method created by Curtis Smith, a Pitt police officer. Smith's method—it's called "Buy Yourself a Minute," or BYAM—teaches students how to avoid dangerous situations and also how to get out of them. Smith doesn't sugarcoat his lessons: He prepares his students by acting out purse snatchings and shootings. And for their final, Smith's students walk the streets of Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood at night in clusters. They are armed with Silly String (to represent pepper spray) and are subjected to simulated attacks, to which they must respond appropriately.

"It's different from a lot of other programs," says Smith. "We feel that the BYAM method is much more balanced, and it deals with the overall spectrum of crimes—scams and so forth."

The simulated attacks, he says, give students "a realistic point of view on what it's going to take, how to survive out there."

Safety experts believe that while self-defense classes are no absolute guarantee of personal safety, they make students more aware of their surroundings and the dangers they may face. Sometimes this comes from practical advice; Temple's RAD students, for example, are taught to "case their joints" for chinks in the security at their own homes or apartments. Some experts also believe the classes improve students' self-esteem.

"We do believe it's part of a comprehensive plan—it's not an elixir, but it certainly can't hurt," says Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, which is also based in Pennsylvania.

Kassa's organization, described by Security magazine last year as "the most influential security-focused not-for-profit" in the country, was created in response to the outcry over the death of Jeanne Clery, a student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., who was brutally raped and murdered in her dormitory in 1986. Family members learned later that many violent and nonviolent incidents had been reported to campus police but that students had not been warned about potential threats.

Clery's family pressured Congress to pass the Jeanne Clery Act, obligating colleges and universities to publish crime statistics. "You need to know your data first, which is why you need to have good crime statistics and reporting," says Kassa. "The other [aspect] is prevention, and that is something self-defense classes can help with. For students to realize they are part of the solution can be very helpful."

Back at Temple, as class wraps up for the semester, some of the seniors reflect on why they registered for the self-defense course through RAD. Sinopoli, the broadcast major, took the course because she wants to do investigative reporting, and she has heard "horror stories" about that line of work. Knauss signed up because she had heard rave reviews of the training—and because some unsavory off-campus encounters in Philadelphia prompted her to want to know how to respond.

"There was something Michelle said at the beginning of the class: It's one thing to be confident, but if you don't have the skills to actually back up that confidence, it's useless; it's just an attitude," says Knauss.

"I know that I'm pretty feisty," she adds. "But could I go through the moves?"

Searching for a college? Get our America's Best Colleges 2010 complete rankings.