Students can now register for the University of Connecticut Police Department’s self-defense classes via their website.
The program is a 12-hour course broken into three or four classes. The women’s classes start on Tuesday, Sept. 17 and will continue every Tuesday until Oct. 8.
The classes will be held at the UConn Recreation Center’s Husky Suite, which is located on the first floor next to Mango. This program is free for UConn students.
Currently, only registration for the women’s program is open. This is because more female students sign up for the course than male students, according to Justin Cheney, the community outreach sergeant for the Storrs campus and the self-defense program coordinator.
Cheney said that the structure of the sessions will be a mix of discussion and learning physical skillsets. There will also be guest speakers from the Women’s Center and the Dean of Students Office.
The women’s sessions focus on physical skillsets, whereas the men’s sessions focus on verbal interventions. According to Cheney, the programs were built upon what male and female students expressed they wanted to learn.
“[Female students] want to feel a bit more confident in their abilities … to feel they can handle their own safety,” he said.
Participants must be able to attend all scheduled classes, as the police department cannot offer self-defense classes for fewer hours than listed, according to their website.
These sessions are offered throughout the academic year and the winter and summer recesses, according to the website.
According to Cheney, the self-defense classes have a 30-person capacity. Those who are locked out of registration should contact Cheney at justin.cheney@uconn.edu to be placed on a waitlist.
[Female students] want to feel a bit more confident in their abilities … to feel they can handle their own safety
Justin Cheney, Community Outreach Sergeant and Self-Defense Program Coordinator.
Cheney shared that the police department also offers demonstrations separate from the classes.
The demonstrations are stand-alone sessions about one to two hours long. They host larger class sizes and are most used by clubs and fraternities/sororities. Contact PDStartTeam@uconn.edu to schedule a demonstration.
The UConn Police Department partnered with Off-Campus Student Services, Residential Life, the Department of Allied Health Sciences and Hawley Armory to put these self-defense programs together. Cheney said that the police department is open to partnering with other clubs and organizations on campus for smaller, shorter sessions. An example he provided was that last semester, the department partnered with Her Campus UConn and spoke at one of the meetings.
Reach out to either Cheney at justin.cheney@uconn.edu or PDStartTeam@uconn.edu for further inquiries.