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”

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Online

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 framework, two research questions guide the inquiry: how do Latino/a first-year EOF students at Rutgers–Newark narrate their academic, social, and personal transitions into college, and how do they describe using emotional intelligence and community cultural wealth to navigate challenges during the first year?

Purposive sampling will be used to recruit 8-12 Latino/a first-year EOF students. Data will be generated through two individual semi-structured interviews per participant — one in the fall semester and one in the spring — along with optional participant artifacts and a researcher’s reflexive field journal. Analysis proceeds in two phases: individual narrative profiles are constructed for each participant, followed by cross-narrative analysis using the four EI branches and six CCW capitals as sensitizing concepts. Trustworthiness is established through member review, peer debriefing, thick description, and an audit trail.

Findings are expected to advance the theoretical integration of emotional intelligence and community cultural wealth in first-year Latino/a persistence research, contribute to the application of interpretive narrative inquiry in the EOF context, and generate practice-facing knowledge for EOF program design, first-year advising, peer mentoring, and culturally responsive institutional support at Rutgers–Newark.

To attend this event virtually and for more information, please contact academic.services@gse.rutgers.edu. Please submit requests at least 48 hours before the event. Requests received less than 48 hours in advance may not be accommodated in time.