Call for Instructors

Do you have passion for a topic and a desire to instruct a PUGS course? This is the page for you! We are seeking applications for course instructors.

PUGS is an active experiment of learning and growing as a community. Our instructors hail from a diversity of backgrounds and share a dedication for facilitating curiosity. We don’t require a specific degree to teach at PUGS. Rather, we invite people to facilitate on the basis of lived experience and passion. Following are the traits we hold up for PUGS instructors:

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In a spring 2019 survey to PUGS community members, we asked what they wanted to learn this year. Browse through the list of topics below for inspiration:

  • Food culture

  • Financial investing

  • Jump starting your creative side

  • Community volunteering

  • The art of communication for introverts

  • How to publish a book

  • Meditation skills

  • Plant identification/foraging

  • Interesting and affordable travel ideas

  • Wine appreciation

  • Urban homesteading

  • Sustainable living

  • How to reduce the amount of waste we produce

  • Rewilding

  • How to create sharing/bartering economies

  • Library science

  • Facilitation

  • Organizational development

  • Setting up as an independent contractor/freelancer

  • Psychology and human development

  • Design thinking, applied to nonprofit challenges

  • Address climate change (slowing it, grieving it, this could go a lot of ways)

  • Building a self-care routine

  • Portland/Oregon history and social justice

  • Volunteer management

  • Public speaking

  • Political campaign skills prior to election (with styles and ethics of canvassing)

  • Labor unions 101

  • Better sleep

  • How to overcome self-doubt or fear

  • Current developments in local environmental issues

  • Aging

  • Interrupting racism

  • Fires

  • Houselessness history and advocacy

  • Making authentic friendships

  • Reduce perfectionism

  • Clothing alterations

  • Drawing & art

  • Wilderness 101

  • Neuroscience; neurobiology

  • Intro to backpacking

  • World religions

  • Presence and mindfulness

  • Mushroom cultivation

  • Caring for aging parents

  • Unsticking yourself

  • Life transitions: a how-to

  • Writing

  • Civics 101

  • How to reason and argue

  • Stoic philosophy

  • Blueprints for positive community impact

  • Arab-American communities in Portland

  • Managing depression

  • Bread baking

  • Making simple robots

  • Creating silly costumes/pattern design 101

  • Basic electrical work (like how to install a new light fixture)

  • Diagnosing problems with your house plant care

  • Photography basics

  • Improv

  • Architectural history

  • Neighborhood/community design

  • Really practical, realistic budgeting tips

  • How to relax/take care of oneself in the context of being part of a marginalized group in this oppressive capitalist culture.

  • Tips for staying optimistic in late stage capitalism

  • Advanced recipe creation

  • Landscape planning

  • Irish folklore and fairytales

  • Mushroom foraging/hunting

  • Herbology and plants

  • Psychology of animal healing/therapy

  • Conflict resolution

  • Basic car maintenance

  • World cultures

  • How to write a curriculum

  • How to communicate with an organization about partnering opportunities

  • Intro to bookkeeping and accounting for new small business owners who are too busy to read a boring book about it

  • Marketing for social/economic justice

  • Economic justice

  • Budget/financial management for nonprofit programs

  • Music appreciation

  • How to be a socially conscious, activist traveler

  • Website design

  • Digital undergrounds

  • Podcasting

  • Project management

  • Google Analytics

  • Increase financial prosperity in ethical ways under capitalist oppression

  • Fermentation

  • Moving through creative blocks

  • Reading groups that move slowly

  • Form and maintain a nonprofit

  • Graphic design

  • Pizza making

  • Tree care

  • How to develop a personal philosophy about social media

  • Gratitude

  • Positive body image

  • How to sell artwork

  • Unicycling

  • Joy and activism

  • Creating supportive peer groups

  • Sing-along skills

  • Upcycling

  • Home management skills

  • How to hire and manage employees

  • Organization - home, computer, business

  • Systems change and next economy (permaculture)

  • Restorative economics

  • Data privacy

  • Reading “Drawdown”

  • Microaggressions

  • Cat parenting (with cat tour!)

  • How to make big decisions

  • Conflict navigation

  • Cultivating dialogue with inner voice

  • Spirit/meaning-making systems

  • Philosophy

  • Death and dying

  • Experimental art making

  • How to be a mentor/coach

  • Open GIS mapping tools

  • Public meeting attendance/discussion group

  • How to write advocacy letters (Congress, etc.)

  • Native American allyship, history

  • Political theatre

  • How to accept humanity and its flaws

  • Woodworking

  • Vegan cooking

  • Motherhood

  • Photographing people of color

  • Raspberry Pi

  • Build a bee box

  • Bee recognition/gardening

  • Urban trees of record

  • History of Chinese Portland

  • How to grill

  • Bike maintenance

  • Gardening seasons in PDX

  • The art of asking

  • Planning a wedding

  • How wealth is (really) distributed

  • Paternalism and you

  • Navigating your #metoo story

  • Professional business writing

  • How to use spices

  • Collaborative board gaming for beginners

  • Decoding knitting patterns

  • Help your kid with new math

  • Nature photography

Do one of these inspire you to teach? Please apply! We will review these on a rolling basis. Do you have questions?