The University of Calgary has announced that it will be the first Alberta postsecondary institution to sign the Recovery-Friendly Campus (RFC) pledge, an initiative that focuses on creating a campus environment that prioritizes and celebrates recovery pathways for students, faculty, and staff. The pledge has eight criteria, including raising awareness to reduce stigma, normalizing and valuing recovery, and creating on-campus recovery-friendly events and activities. “People are terrified of reaching out for help,” said UCalgary Associate Professor Dr Victoria Burns. “They’re terrified of being found out, and we’re here to challenge that. We’re here to recover out loud, so that we can normalize the idea that you can be in an academic setting, you can be in recovery, you can thrive.”
