Despite the significant efforts made by students and the University to educate students of the risk of sexual assault both on and off campus, and to prepare them to avoid potentially dangerous situations, sexual assault continues to be even more of a serious issue at Penn State that many students realize.

Students now have the opportunity to enroll in the Rape Aggression Defense system (RAD) offered through the Center for Women Students and the Penn State University Police, which is a step in the right direction, teaching self-defense tactics and preparing women to protect themselves if they are ever assaulted. However, the course only allows women to enroll, and appeals to a relatively small number of students willing and able to take the extra time out of their day to enroll.

The University also offer Kinesiology 057, which teaches students to be proficient in martial arts and self-defense, and counts as a health and physical activity credit. However, this past semester, only one 25 student section of the course was offered, and only women students were able to enroll. Kinesiology 057 is not being offered at all in the fall 2013 semester.

While the majority of sexual assaults do involve female victims, sexual assault is not an issue that solely pertains to women. Actually, 9 to 10 percent of sexual assault victims are male. Therefore, if they so desire, men should also have the opportunity to enroll in a self-defense course that focuses on protecting against sexual assault. Furthermore, given the extent to which sexual assault is an issue at Penn State, self-defense courses should be made more accessible than they are currently. In order to appeal to a larger group of students and better prepare them in the event of an attempted sexual assault, the University should offer a more widely available self-defense course modeled after RAD, that would focus specifically on protecting students against sexual assault and would also count as credit toward the health and physical activity general education requirement.