The Villanova community was reminded of the controversy surrounding a graduating senior who was involved in a sexual assault case in 2022. For context, the student did not commit the act himself, but was accused of filming it, leading many students to protest that the student should not graduate with his classmates.
Heading back to my south campus dorm on April 13, 2025, I watched as flyers about “THE TRUTH ABOUT VILLANOVA” and “VILLANOVA PROTECTS RAPISTS’ were passed out to prospective families visiting campus for Admitted Students Day. Eventually, the Villanova community released a statement claiming that the alleged student would not attend the graduation ceremony, and the situation calmed down. However, this is not the first time Villanovans have faced civil unrest related to sexual assault on campus, leading many to question whether or not Villanova should offer more resources to prepare students on how to handle assault.
To provide a foundation for later arguments, it is important to highlight Villanova’s current efforts related to sexual misconduct and Public Safety’s response to it.
According to page six of the 2025 Villanova Security and Fire Safety Report, “Both the Office for Residence Life and the Department of Public Safety provide the University community with educational materials on safety and crime prevention in brochures and on their departmental websites…The Department of Public Safety offers a wide variety of security awareness and crime prevention programming for students and employees. Topics include personal safety awareness, theft prevention, sexual assault awareness, internet safety, alcohol education, Active Shooter Awareness Training, and the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) self-defense course… During the 2024-2025 academic year, Public Safety offered approximately 40 crime prevention and security awareness programs. Topics such as active shooter preparedness, personal safety, residence hall security, and sexual assault prevention are some examples of programs offered during the prior academic year.”
Although this statement steers our community in the correct direction, the quotes provided above are not able to be accessed through a simple Google search. This leaves many wondering if the programming that Villanova offers should be advertised more publicly, especially given recent events.
If this claim seems overly dramatic, I will try to put it into context. After typing ‘Villanova Group Fitness’ into Google, I received a link that displayed the various yoga, Pilates and dance classes offered to Villanova students over the course of the week. Imagine this: what if we had a similar web page that contained a full schedule of self-defense-related programs? I am not claiming that we should substitute the group fitness schedule for this one, but rather arguing that the two should co-exist with the same publicity, as it was much easier to find the group fitness schedule online.
“I think adding more accessible self-defense classes on campus could benefit all students in terms of learning about how to keep themselves safe,” sophomore Isa Houlihan said.
Villanova does offer a wide range of programming, but the problem is that it must be requested by the students themselves.
More specifically, according to Villanova’s Department of Public Safety, “Public Safety can talk to your group or attend an event to offer info-sessions on the following topics: Theft Prevention, Active Shooter Response, Staying Safe Online, Identity Theft, Sexual Assault Prevention, Dating Violence, Harassment and Stalking, Hate Crimes, and RAD Self Defense Program. The session can also be customized to your needs.”
This is a great thing, but sometimes students feel uncomfortable reaching out and requesting this rather than attending a related event that is already offered.
Rather than denouncing anything currently available, I hope to inspire more self-defense resources that can help Villanova grow stronger and are easier to access.
