For years, UT’s SHIFT program has prioritized helping students feel safe in their college experience whether or not they choose to participate in substance use. Known for distributing non-alcoholic drinks at campus events, providing access to naloxone around campus and educating students about substance use, SHIFT now offers a zine forum to engage students in substance use conversation and de-stigmatization. 

This summer, SHIFT interns work to create a zine with columns of information about SHIFT and substance use along with written and art submissions from students outside the program. With this, SHIFT aims to share perspectives of substance use through personal student testimony for the first time to help students feel seen.

 “I wanted it to be something that was pocket-sized, something that was useful but also (something that) people could connect to,” said Anushka Pradhan, who has worked with SHIFT for a year now and assisted in the zine’s conceptualization. “The first idea was of course to include safety practices and to promote wellness in different areas, and then we (thought to also) reach out to the community, hear their stories and make it more relatable to the students.”

Though this plan originated last summer, SHIFT will begin producing the zine this year. SHIFT summer intern Catherine Liu said she served as the head of producing the zine. 

“My goal with the zine is to engage the community in conversation by highlighting and empowering student voices, their stories and their experiences at UT,” Liu said. “I also hope to inform the readers a little bit more about substance use, harm reduction and safety.”

Liu said the zine will be available both digitally and in print around campus with all of the student submissions included so long as they relate to campus life, wellness or substance use. Liu said she also plans to produce informative columns throughout the zine, supporting SHIFT’s initiative to educate students.

“I’m super excited about this format because it’s putting students at the center,” said SHIFT director Kate Lower. “This is a really cool opportunity to collect some of these stories to highlight how different and how universal the student experience can be.” 

Lower said after hearing many anecdotes from students about their personal experiences on campus and thoughts on SHIFT pilots, she’s happy the zine will shine light on these opinions. 

“(They’re) not the stereotypical college student you see in popular culture movies that goes out and gets drunk,” Lower said. “Students are very invested in wellbeing, their friends’ wellbeing and bystander intervention.”