Dissertation Proposal Announcement Ed.D. Program: Esteban Cevallos “Navigating the First Year: Emotional Intelligence and Community Cultural Wealth among Latino/a First-Year EOF Students at Rutgers–Newark”

Latino/a students represent the fastest-growing population in U.S. higher education. However, first-year persistence rates remain disproportionately low, with Hispanic students persisting to a second fall at 74.5%, below the national average of 77.1% (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2024). Despite extensive scholarship documenting the structural barriers contributing to this gap, far less is known about the psychosocial strengths and cultural assets Latino/a first-year students draw on to persist. This gap is particularly pronounced in Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) programs, where a statewide evaluation found that these programs lack systematic evidence on how first-year students navigate the college transition emotionally and culturally (Walsh, 2023). This qualitative interpretive narrative inquiry explores how Latino/a first-year undergraduates enrolled in the EOF Program at Rutgers University–Newark draw on emotional intelligence and community cultural wealth to navigate the academic, social, and personal demands of their first year. Grounded in Mayer and Salovey’s (1990) Ability Model of Emotional Intelligence and Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth…