Rape Prevention

A rape prevention workshop will begin today at Phillips Brooks House. The workshop is an effort to help Harvard females adopt a "posture which will reduce the probability of rape if they are threatened," Arthur Fitzhugh, Harvard police agent and coordinator of the program, said yesterday.

The workshop, organized in response to the assault of two undergraduate women at Leverett House last October, consists of four 90-minute sessions. The sessions will educate participants in "resistance options using role-playing techniques," as well as provide information through speakers, films and tapes, Fitzhugh said.

Fitzhugh will also publish a brochure on rape prevention techniques which will be distributed to 13,000 women in the Harvard community within the next few weeks. The brochure compiles knowledge from members of Boston rape-crisis centers, the rape unit of Beth Israel Hospital, and representatives from the Radcliffe Union of Students, Fitzhugh said.

The workshop is open to all members of the Harvard community, including males, and will be offered on alternate days at the Medical School. "Though the program aims at assertiveness training, it is not a martial arts course," Fitzhugh added.