The kinesiology department offers a variety of courses to keep students healthy and active. One course, Self-Defense for Women, teaches female students safety by demonstrating how to get out of potentially life-threatening situations.
“Being safe is being healthy, so that’s where we come in,” Matthew Curtner-Smith, head of the kinesiology department, said.
Instructor Zach Wahl said the course combines cognitive tips to avoid dangerous situations and physical techniques to get students out of immediate danger. Wahl, a doctoral student studying sports pedagogy, is one of six graduate instructors to teach the course this semester, not including a few University of Alabama Police Department officers.
The course gives officers a chance to connect with students and demonstrate their duty to protect students. Wahl said the police show the students where the lit running paths on campus are and give them tips, such as walking home in pairs.
“It was more than PR. It wasn’t a veneer; it was real,” Curtner-Smith said.
Colleen Geary, coordinator of basic physical activity programs, said the textbook for the course follows Sexual Harassment Assault Rape Prevention techniques, and all instructors are SHARP-certified to teach the course.
Students learn how to disarm an attacker with a gun toward the end of the course, but the semester begins with more passive techniques, used to get out of situations on a date or in the workplace, Wahl said.
“Let’s say you’re in the work environment, and someone is blocking the door. We teach a hip check so they can get out of the situation,” Wahl said. “Going out and being in that situation is a lot more likely than having a gun to your head.”
No matter the danger, instructors emphasize getting away from the assailant as quickly as possible.
“The goal isn’t to teach you how to fight, it’s to teach you how to be safe,” Wahl said.
Jenni Jensen, another graduate instructor, said the techniques help students avoid being a target.
“We teach girls the type of body language that shows they are strong women, prepared to protect themselves,” Jensen said.
Geary said in addition to what the textbook and UAPD officers teach, representatives from Crimson Choice come in to speak about safety at home, such as making sure front doors are metal and that the outside of apartments are lit properly. Geary said the course is centered on making women aware of their surroundings.
The course is open only to female students, and most sections have at least one female instructor. Geary said the predominately female environment is designed to make women comfortable to discuss the often sensitive course material. Additionally, having a female instructor demonstrate the techniques on a male counterpart sets a good example.
The first sections began in Spring 2008 after Judy Bonner, then provost, approached the kinesiology department about offering a course to make campus safer.
The program started with two sections, but demand grew to fill four sections. Now, the department teaches 172 students in six sections, two of which are taught at the UAPD office with an officer working alongside a graduate student.
“I knew it would reassure my mom because this is my first time moving out on my own,” said Heather Grzankowski, a first-year graduate student enrolled in the course.
Rose Chilton, a freshman majoring in environmental science, is also in the course this semester. She said she feels more confident knowing she has the ability to defend herself.
“It’s good to know, you never know what’s gonna happen,” Chilton said.
Curtner-Smith said although the course is not growing, there are no plans to shrink the number of available slots.
“If we had a perfectly safe world then it would go away,” Curtner-Smith said.
