Becoming An Educator
Peer Educators act as leaders to facilitate discussions about a variety of relationship and sexual health topics. Educators are also empowered to support their fellow students with information and guidance about sexual health, relationship concerns and resources on campus.
New members undergo a thorough training process before the start of each term, which prepares them to lead workshops on sensitive topics and support friends who face challenges in their personal lives.
As members, Pleasure students enjoy the full-time support of VPR’s Vienna Rothberg, who coordinates member trainings and peer education workshops so that Pleasure Educators can focus on engaging with peers and deepening their understanding of healthy relationships and identity politics.
If you are interested in learning more, talk to any pleasure educator – or just go ahead an submit an application! We will schedule a brief interview with you where we will get to know you a bit and answer any questions you have. Trainings are held in late August and at the end of IAP. We sometimes schedule a 3rd training option over a long weekend. Due to COVID-19, the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 trainings have gone entirely virtual!
Our next trainings for AY 21-22 are in the planning stages and subject to ongoing Covid-19 guidelines. We are currently planning for various options including all remote, hybrid and in-person.
Applications are due April 30th for the fall 2021 cycle. However we do accept applications on a rolling basis if we have any remaining openings. Training groups fill quickly so we encourage you to apply early.
Our upcoming training sessions are:
PLEASURE17
Application deadline April 30th 2021 at noon
Interviews May 3-6, 2021
Training schedule TBD- see options in the application.
When we receive your application, we will be in touch to set up an interview. We do offer Early Return for August trainees- if current Covid guidelines allow for in-person training.
What is it like to join PLEASURE?
If you are selected to be a PLEASURE educator, you will be training with the rest of your cohort + VPR staff + some amazing talented PLEASURE educators. That training is pretty diverse in content (everything from info on contraceptives, to ways to understand how your own identity impacts your work as an educator, to presentation skills, and so much more). It’s important to us to equip new Pleducators with both the info and skills needed to do important work and to give them strong bonds with their cohort so they always have a support network.
Once you are trained, the main commitments are showing up to general body meetings (which range from specific content to creating content for outward facing workshops), about one presentation a month to either other Pleducators or a group we are working with and being an active participant in informal culture change on campus.
However, PLEASURE is very much an organization that you can commit your energy is much or as little as you would like.
Some things we have going on right now that I or other educators are involved with are: a committee that orders and distributes heavily discounted menstrual cups and sex toys, a special working group making content about pods and relationship boundaries for first years, a committee that works on recruiting new PLEASURE educators, and a team that gives the athletics teams their mandatory sexual assault prevention workshops. These are just a few of the things Pleducators are involved with right now, so if there is something that YOU want PLEASURE to be involved in we’d love to hear it.
Ruby ’22