Nadia Telsey blows into the coffee shop in a whirlwind of brisk winter air, wearing blue fleece gloves and full of energetic enthusiasm.
“I was literally out the door, and I went back in to answer the phone! How silly is that?” Telsey said.
“It’s a good thing I did, though, because it was my neighbor and she was frantic,” the adjunct professor of women’s studies said. “She had a doctor appointment and her car broke down, so I let her use mine.”
Telsey was just doing what she does: helping others. Telsey, 53, has been teaching self-defense for women at the University for 10 years. She is leaving at the end of winter term to have back surgery and is unsure whether she will be able to return in the fall.
To those who know her, Telsey’s dedication to helping others is evident not only in her work at the University, but also in her everyday life. Her self-defense class is as well-known to women’s studies students as the location of the nearest lattŽ cart.
Most students hear about her class from ecstatic friends who have taken it. The class focuses on teaching women both verbal strategies and physical skills, which will help them defend themselves against rape and domestic violence. What is remarkable about this class is that women who have taken it claim the experience was life-altering.
“I loved it,” said Sarah DeVore, a 26-year-old education major. “I feel stronger. I feel safer. I walk around with more confidence now.”
DeVore took the class in the fall of 2000, and said she would recommend it to any woman who wants to empower herself.
“I think Nadia will be very hard to replace. She is pretty amazing,” DeVore said.
“When I took this class as a student, I got so much out of it I wanted to see what it was like on the other side,” said Jessica Geraci, 19, who is a student facilitator for Telsey’s class. “I wanted to help other women.”
Facilitators are former self-defense students who volunteer approximately eight hours of their time each week to help teach the class. Facilitators such as Geraci demonstrate physical moves in class, help students role-play attack situations and lead outside discussion groups.
Geraci said she loves facilitating, even though it is hard for some of her peers to understand what she does in class.

“A lot of people call it ‘The Man-Hater’s Club’ because they think there should be men in the class too,” Geraci said. “They don’t understand how difficult it would be for a woman who has been victimized by a man to recreate those situations with a male classmate. Many women wouldn’t take the class if there were men in it.”
Many would-be students of Telsey’s are disappointed to hear of her impending absence. Some of these are students who were unable to register for Self-Defense for Women, also known as Women’s Studies 399, because the class is nearly always full after the first week of registration.
“I think the University definitely needs to continue to have classes like this,” DeVore said.
Telsey, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., didn’t always want to be a self-defense teacher. She majored in anthropology in college and had visions of digging up fossils in faraway places.
Attending school amid student protests against the Vietnam War, Telsey began to think seriously about how she would like to affect the world around her. She went back to school and earned her teaching degree.
At the time, she was also becoming an avid student of the martial arts. She credits Gerald Orange, her role model and sensei, or martial arts teacher, with being the catalyst that helped her realize she had the power to change the world.
“He believed in me, so I began to believe in me,” Telsey said.
Telsey feels both sadness and contentment about the possibility that she may not return to teach.
“On one hand, I am tired of schlepping my equipment to class and ready to slow down a bit,” Telsey said.
On the other hand, Telsey said she will miss interacting with students and seeing how she is making a difference in their lives.
“I like to think I have started something here,” she said, smiling through the rising steam from her tea, “and that my students will continue it.”