The Center for Students in Recovery, a department under the Division of Student Affairs, is celebrating 20 years as a supportive community space on campus for students along their individual recovery journeys.

The center offers classes in allyship to help friends and family members of those with substance use disorders. It also hosts open hours, group meetings, social events and activities like yoga classes led by Kalama Tshiteya, a Students for Recovery campus community engagement officer.

“This center needs to be celebrated for how it has benefited generations in the past and how it will benefit generations to come,” said Tshiteya, an applied movement science and health promotion behavioral science junior. “This center is important because of the way that it changes the trajectory of people’s lives.”

Biology senior Ellie Morris said finishing her degree would have been incredibly difficult if not for the community she found at the center.

“A lot of times, it’s easy to feel alone and like you’re the only person going through whatever you’re struggling with, and if you feel that way, you won’t feel that way if you come to the center,” Morris said. 

This year, the Association of Recovery in Higher Education recognized Morris as the Collegiate Recovery Student of the Year, bringing the center national recognition among similar recovery programs. Morris will be celebrated this summer at the association’s annual conference.

“There (are) a lot of people going through the same thing and that have the same fears of no one understanding (you) or people judging you,” Morris said. “It can be really hard to go through something that difficult and (to) have all that shame and (have) that weigh on you alone, and you shouldn’t have to. That’s why this support system is available to you.”

Director Lilly Ettinger said the center will move from its current location in Belmont Hall to its new home in the Student Services Building after the semester ends. The center will remain open until graduation, however, and will reopen at the new location on June 3.

“You don’t have to make any commitments — we’re not here to control anybody’s recovery pathway or define it for them,” Ettinger said. “We’re here to walk alongside and to offer student(s) support and connect (them) to all of the different resources that UT has and to the larger recovery community in town.”