After U campus police suspended a rape awareness and self-defense class because of budget shortfalls, rape prevention advocates are saying the cancellation adds to the ignorance of Utah’s most underreported crime.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Amy Jensen, program coordinator for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, about the suspension of the U’s Rape Aggression Defense course, which was offered three times a year.
U Police Capt. Lynn Mitchell said the program cut was part of a university-wide budget cut because it was too expensive for an inconsistent number of participants. At times, the $1,400 program would have as many as 70 women on the waiting list, yet only 12 women enrolled at other times, he said.
Mitchell also said not enough of those women were U students. He said too many were women from the surrounding community, not the campus, which is the campus police department’s top priority.
Kristy Bartley, the counseling coordinator for the U Women’s Resource Center, said she understands the police department’s decision to cut the course.
“We all had to make cuts, and if enrollment was starting to drop off…what are you going to do?” she said.
Sgt. Lynn Rohland, RAD’s supervisor, said she laments the loss of the course. When RAD was established six years ago, she raised money for most of the equipment and helped teach each class. Other U police officers, such as Sgt. Arb Nordgran, were paid as instructors to help her teach simple defense techniques and ways to avoid dangerous situations.
Rohland said the course’s final session, which ended last week, was so well received by its participants that they were inspired to collect and donate money for the YWCA of Salt Lake City. Rohland said she did not know how much was donated.
The course is still tentatively planned for 2009 if the budget somehow turns around, she said.
Mitchell said if U administrators decide they want to financially support the class, the department will be more than happy to resume it.
If the RAD course were to resume, its $25 fee would likely increase a few dollars to alleviate some of the financial burden, Rohland said.
U police also eliminated some of their own training programs to save money. If RAD hadn’t faced the chopping block, other programs or resources more pertinent to the U would have felt the blow of the budget cut, Mitchell said.
Rohland suggests that people still interested in rape self-defense classes look into Weber State University or Brigham Young University, which also offer RAD classes.
The Women’s Resource Center also refers women to a number of different self-defense and primary prevention courses around the Salt Lake valley, such as the women’s self-defense course at the East Millcreek Recreation Center, or primary prevention education at the Rape Recovery Center.