After class enrollment doubled following multiple attempted rapes reported on campus last Fall, registration for the UF Rape Aggression Defense program has normalized.
Tina Lamb, program coordinator for the free self-defense class, said there was record enrollment after three women were attacked on campus at the end of August.
While instructors usually try to cap the class at 25 participants, Lamb said they made arrangements to fit as many as 40 or more.
Still, classes filled up until November, according to Alligator archives.
“It was kind of a difficult thing to do, given that we had increased police presence on campus,” Lamb said.
Because some of the instructors are members of the University Police Department or other local police departments, the extra police shifts left some of those officers without time to teach the classes.
Police assignments are relatively back to normal, and although Spring RAD classes began Jan. 6, Lamb said they are still accepting applications.
“Right now, I am not turning women away from any class,” she said.
Yisel Silva-Alvarado, 23, said she and her mom have completed RAD twice.
Silva-Alvarado, a UF linguistics senior, said she appreciated Lamb’s emphasis on general well-being during the course, which takes place at the University Police headquarters.
“She wants to make everyone safe while they’re doing it, but at the same time she encourages you while you’re doing it,” Silva-Alvarado said. “Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you can’t do it, and that’s empowering.”
The course is divided into four classes, with each one lasting three hours.
Despite the long hours, Silva-Alvarado said she felt accomplished.
“At the end of the night, even though you were tired and it was three hours long, you felt good,” she said.
The RAD program is designed specifically with a woman’s body in mind, Lamb said.
It teaches women common-sense safety strategies and defense techniques that will help them escape from situations in which they are threatened.
Orjada Dashi, a UF accounting sophomore, said she took the course last Spring when she had a lot of late-night meetings.
She still remembers what she learned.
“I thought it would be a good idea to take the course just in case something happened,” Dashi, 19, said.
Most women’s first lessons in self-defense come from family and usually rely on buying tools such as alarm systems or pepper spray, which Lamb said forces you to rely on someone or something else for self defense.
“You are enough,” she said. “You can protect yourself. You don’t have to rely on those other people or other things to protect yourself.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 1/15/2015 under the headline “Rape defense classes enrollment average again after spike"]
Susan Gonzalez (center), participates in a R.A.D. exercise in which Capt. Ray Tremblay (right), of the City of Chiefland Police Department, acts as the aggressor.
