Board of Directors

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

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

Jessica Boynton is the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Denver Law. Before returning to Denver Law in 2015, Jessica was the Director of Student Judicial Affairs at Colorado State University-Pueblo. Since 2016, Jessica has volunteered with CADE, the Coalition of Colorado Campus Alcohol and Drug Educators, as a steering committee member. Jessica earned her Bachelor of Science degree in communications from Cornell University and earned her JD from Denver Law in 2008. Jessica began her legal career at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in both the corporate transactional and civil litigation groups before moving to Pueblo, Colorado and practicing at Banner & Bower, P.C.

Email: jessica.boynton.du.edu
Phone:

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

VACANT

 

 

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Vant

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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

 

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

Email: annette.baldwin@selu.edu
Phone: 985-549-3233

Jillian Grant is the Program Coordinator of the Collegiate Recovery Program at North Carolina Central University. There she identifies and interfaces with campus and community partners, develops and manages outreach opportunities, and ensures program goals are met within a timely matter and within budget. She is a National Certified Counselor, Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist Associate as well as a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate. Jillian earned a dual master’s degree from NCCU in clinical mental health counseling and school counseling in December of 2021. She is also a 2020 MFP-Addictions counseling fellow with the National Board of Certified Counselors. Her future goals are to create reform in educational systems for addictions. Her special interests and niche include studying family systems, working with children and minorities. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, spending time with loved ones, and listening to live music.

Contact info

Email: jgrant31@nccu.edu
Phone: 919-391-8234

 

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

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