Board of Directors
The ARHE Board of Directors is a voluntary group of elected and appointed leaders who serve the growing field of collegiate recovery. The highest priority of each board member is to support and encourage the development and sustainability of collegiate recovery programs.
The board jointly oversees the activities of the organization, supports its membership, and develops the organization’s strategic plan. The board is organized in terms of officers — Co-Chairs, Secretary, and Treasurer with additional regional representation, and appointed members.
ARHE Board Members

Jarmichael “Jay” Harris, MS, LCAS
Co-Chair
Jarmichael Harris, an ECU graduate, currently serves as the East Carolina University Collegiate Recovery Community Coordinator and Alcohol and Other Drug Staff Counselor for the Center for Counseling and Student Development. Jarmichael has spent the past seven years working in substance use treatment and recovery supports, mostly with adolescents and young adults. He finds his youthfulness and love for the university as an asset in building rapport with the students he encounters on a daily basis. After completing his bachelor’s degree in Rehabilitation Services and a minor in Alcohol and Drug Studies in 2010, he became a residential treatment counselor in Greenville, NC and later finished his master’s degree in Substance Abuse and Clinical Counseling. Jarmichael, a Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist, was named 2017 ARHE Collegiate Recovery Staff of the Year. Jarmichael was raised in Salisbury, NC and enjoys adventure sports such as rock climbing, whitewater rafter and obstacle course racing.
Contact info
Email: info@jarmichaelharris.com
Phone: 614-292-2094

Ahmed Hosni
Co-Chair
Ahmed Hosni, MSW Ahmed Hosni is the Assistant Director of the Student Life Student Wellness Center at The Ohio State University and Director of Recovery at the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drug Misuse Prevention and Recovery. As a person in long-term recovery since 2007, he knows firsthand the destructive nature of addiction and the restorative power of recovery. His passion is creating programs and pathways that serve people in or seeking recovery, people with problematic substance use behaviors, and their families. He has spent the last 12 years advocating for the implementation of equitable and just frameworks that allow all people access to the necessary resources to garner sustainable and enriching long-term recovery. Ahmed received a B.S. in Community, Family, and Addiction Sciences from Texas Tech University where he was a member of the Collegiate Recovery Program and president of the Association of Students About Service and received his MSW from The Ohio State University. Ahmed is grateful for the opportunity to serve as a board member of the Association of Recovery Schools and as a past board member for the Association of Recovery in Higher Education.
Contact info
Email: hosni.2@osu.edu
Phone: 614-292-2094

Dominiquie “CJ” Clemmons James
Secretary
Dominiquie “CJ” Clemmons-James, Ph.D., LCMHC, CRC,
Dr. CJ holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Counseling and Administration. She is also a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, Certified Rehabilitation Counselor, and the Coordinator of Aggies for Recovery, the collegiate recovery community at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. There, she provides innovative programming relevant to her campus culture. As a recovery advocate on a Historically Black College campus, Dr. CJ is passionate exploring the areas of addiction and recovery among people of color. Her other professional interests are working with veterans, identity development, biofeedback training, relaxation techniques, life-long recovery, and wellness.
Contact info
Email: clemmonsjamesd21@ecu.edu
Phone: 252-744-6292

Paula Harrington
Treasurer
Paula Harrington, Certified Peer Support Specialist/Trainer, Recovery Coach and Trainer currently is Special Projects Coordinator for Oxford House, Inc., Board Chair of the FreedomHouse Recovery Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Vice Chair of the Orange County Local Re-Entry Council. Ms. Harrington is a woman in long-term recovery since 1998. As a result of her drug usage starting in college, her prior incarceration, and because she didn’t have her children with her when she embraced recovery, these were important areas she wanted to facilitate and support for those seeking recovery that had these issues. She opened the first women’s and children’s Oxford House in North Carolina and the first Collegiate Oxford Houses (male and female) in the Country. She works with those coming out of incarceration who have substance use disorders. She shares a unique partnership with the Carolina Recovery Program at UNC-Chapel Hill which coordinates community re-inforcements surrounding the students with resources that build recovery capital. She has worked tireless over two decades as an addiction educator.
Contact info
Email: paula.harrington@oxfordhouse.org
Phone: 919-616-3020
Members at Large

Jessica Boynton
Member-at-large
Email: jessica.boynton.du.edu
Phone:

Kathleen Gibson
Member-at-large
Kathleen Gibson is the Chief Executive Officer of Oxford House, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the development of Oxford Houses, providing peer-run, self-sustaining, and substance-free housing to individuals seeking recovery from substance use disorders. Ms. Gibson is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a Bachelor of Science in Social Work. She has a deep and personal understanding of addiction and the recovery process. She began her journey in recovery in 1993, realizing quickly that the ability to obtain and sustain safe, affordable housing was and continues to be one of the most significant barriers facing persons in the early stages of recovery. After finding a home in Oxford House and seeing the success of the Oxford House Model firsthand, she devoted the last 30 years to the national expansion of the network of Oxford Houses, which now supports an international group of more than 3,800 Oxford Houses located in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ghana, and the United Kingdom.
Ms. Gibson currently serves on the Boards of Recovery Africa and the Association of Recovery in Higher Education and is an advisor to the NC Substance Use Federations Block Grant Advisory Committee. In 2004 she was the recipient of the “Oxford House Founders Award” and, in 2014, the Faces & Voices of Recovery “Joel Hernandez-Voice of the Recovery Community Award.” Kathleen often speaks publicly on a professional and personal basis about the power of recovery, including fair housing rights, collegiate recovery programs, and reentry initiatives. In particular, she fights fiercely to protect the peer-led recovery housing model and is a strong advocate for the value and necessity of research and data, often participating as an advisor to national research studies. When not in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the central office, Kathleen lives just outside Raleigh, North Carolina, with her daughter and husband.
Contact info
Email: Kathleen.gibson@oxfordhouse.org
Phone: 919-395-8206

Nathan Payne
Member-at-large
Nathan Payne is a person in long term recovery and serves as the Director of Collegiate Recovery with Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Prior to this, Nathan had worked with the Department doing community outreach for those struggling with substance use and developed the Tennessee Collegiate Recovery Initiative. He is a recent graduate of the Mental Health Counseling program at Tennessee Tech University and a lover of all things outdoors.
Contact info
Email: npayne@tamho.org
Phone:
Board Members

Vacant
Pacific Representative
VACANT
Contact info
Email:
Phone:

VACANT
Mountain Representative
Vant
Contact info
Email:
Phone:

Valerie Barela
Southwestern Representative
Ms. Valerie Barela grew up in El Paso, Texas and appreciates the unique junction of cultures afforded by the U.S. Southwest as well as by the U.S./Mexico border. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology at Claremont McKenna College, and her Master’s Degree in Counseling, Specialty: Clinical Mental Health from University of Colorado Denver. She has worked in multiple mental health-related environments, such as community mental health management, a private psychiatric hospital, and community counseling services. She has also worked in multiple roles in relation to mental health service provision including administrative development, case manager, utilization review, and clinical mental health counselor. For the past four years, her work as program coordinator at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has joined her administrative and clinical experiences for the UTEP Collegiate Recovery Program and the UTEP Student Wellbeing Initiative. She was honored to be nominated for the election to the ARHE Board of Directors in 2021 and strives to further ARHE’s vision of fostering collegiate cultures that embrace recovery.
Contact info
Email: valerie.barela.ma@gmail.com
Phone: 915-747-8370

Jonathan Lofgren
Midwest Representative
Jonathan Lofgren, a native Minnesotan, holds a Ph.D. in Education, specializing in Training & Performance Improvement from Capella University. Jonathan is a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor and a Co-occurring Disorders Professional – Diplomat. He is an active member of the AHRE and International Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), and a Lifetime Member of the NAACP Minneapolis Chapter.
Dr. Lofgren has 30+ years of long-term recovery, behavioral health and education experience, and is a faculty member at Minneapolis College and Metro State University. Jonathan is the founder of the Collegiate Recovery Program at Minneapolis College, the 1st CRP in a Community and Technical College in Minnesota. He also created the Adler Graduate School’s Co-Occurring Disorders Master Degree specialization, and Minneapolis College’s Student African American Brotherhood Program (currently AAME).
Contact info
Email: jonathan.lofgren@minneapolis.edu
Phone:612-269-2195

Annette Newton-Baldwin
Southeast Representative
Annette Newton-Baldwin is the Assistant Director of the LION UP Recovery Program (Collegiate Recovery Program) and Intervention at Southeastern Louisiana University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor as well as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Annette earned a Masters of Arts in Counseling from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 1997. She has a special interest in Trauma, Intervention, and Recovery Informed Counseling. Annette is ARISE Trained with Arise Continuing Care as an Interventionist.
Annette has served as a Counselor and Assistant Director of Outreach at the Southeastern Louisiana University Counseling Center. She offers 25 years of experience in working with students and in the community. She has worked in a variety of settings including Bancroft NeuroHealth Rehabilitation Center in Covington and New Orleans, Straight and Narrow Treatment Center of Baton Rouge, and Lifestreams Behavioral Center of Leesburg, Florida.
Annette has worked as grant coordinator with the Transforming Youth in Recovery, National Highway Safety Commission and Tobacco-Free Living. She has also served as TRACC Coalition Chair, Terrell Conference Chair, Junior Auxiliary of Hammond Market Finance Chair as well as President of the Junior Auxiliary of Hammond.
She created Collegiate Recovery Programming at Southeastern Louisiana University. LION UP Recovery launched Fall of 2019. It is the first collegiate recovery program for students in recovery at a public university in the State of Louisiana. Annette continues to work with the LION UP Collegiate Recovery Board to promote sustainability of LION UP Recovery Collegiate Recovery Program and has recently been appointed to serve on the Association of Recovery in Higher Education Board of Directors as the Southeast Representative.
Annette is a mom and native of Slidell, Louisiana. She holds 20+ years of long-term recovery. She enjoys camping, gardening, being with family and friends.
Contact info

Jillian Grant
Mid-Atlantic Representative
Contact info
Email: jgrant31@nccu.edu
Phone: 919-391-8234

lindsay garcia
Northeastern Representative
Lindsay Garcia (she/her) is the Assistant Dean of the College for Junior/Senior Studies and Recovery/Substance-Free Student Initiatives at Brown University. She is also a socially-engaged artist, scholar, teacher, academic advisor, and person in long term recovery. As director of Brown’s Collegiate Recovery Program, the Donovan Program for Recovery and Substance-Free Initiatives, she oversees multidimensional support for students, faculty, and staff in recovery or who identify as substance-free for any reason, including co-facilitating support groups, making referrals to additional professional, social, and emotional supports, advising the SoBear Student Activities Club, and managing the Donovan House, a 17-bed substance-free program house. She received her PhD in American Studies from William & Mary and her MFA in Visual Art from Purchase College, State University of New York.
Contact info
Email: lindsay_garcia@brown.edu
Phone: 401-863-2536
Student Representatives

Alex renkis
Alex Renkis from Nashville, TN is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University pursuing a double major in Human & Organizational Development and Spanish & Portuguese. As a college student with multiple years of recovery, Alex is an active member of Vanderbilt Recovery Support and the broader Nashville recovery community. Alex also assists Vanderbilt researchers with the study of recovery high schools and is currently writing a thesis on the topic. Besides recovery-oriented pursuits, Alex volunteers as a crisis counselor with 988 Lifeline, serves as a senator for Vanderbilt student government, and works as a consultant at Vanderbilt’s Writing Studio. As a member of legal and commercial pre-professional fraternities, Alex aspires to pursue graduate studies in these fields while keeping recovery at the core of his career. In his spare time, Alex enjoys meditation, yoga, the outdoors, live music, and philosophical literature.
Contact info
Email: alexander.w.renkis@vanderbilt.edu
Phone: 615-545-7885

Chelsea Shore
Chelsea is a doctoral candidate in Higher Educational Leadership & Policy Studies at Florida State University. As a student in long-term natural recovery herself, her research interests focus on the substance using, misusing, and recovery identity formation of college students as well as identifying mechanisms CRPs can leverage to provide students a full continuum of care. She currently serves as the Graduate Coordinator for the Collegiate Recovery Program (CRP) within the Center for Health Advocacy and Wellness, promoting its rapid growth during the first two years of implementation. Chelsea participates in various working groups in the fields of higher education and recovery, consulting on higher education policies and CRP implementation. She has served at numerous 2-year and 4-year institutions as a faculty member and practitioner across two states, providing her insight on the transferability of policies or programs considering the organization and governance at institutional, state, and federal levels. Chelsea looks forward to continuing contributing to the growth of the field as an enthusiastic young scholar-practitioner.
Contact info
Email: chelsea.shore06@gmail.com
Phone: 909-238-1190