A rally held Monday at Malcolm X Plaza attempted to raise support to save the Educational Opportunity Program slated for statewide closure this summer.

EOP staff and organizers of the rally are concerned the closure would ruin the chances for more than 10 percent of the college's students to finish their education and jeapordize future economic and ethnic diversity on California campuses.

The closure would affect all CSU and UC campuses.

Since the late 1960s, EOP has provided specialized tutoring programs, advisors, test-workshops, the Summer Bridge program, Student Support Services (SSS), and has worked beyond financial aid programs by awarding additional grants to students striving to overcome adverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

EOP advisor Sam Jones handles a caseload of about 95 students. He said when students first sit down with EOP advisors, their personal lives are addressed. They want to know how things are at home. They lend their ears to those suffering from low self esteem and motivation, even downright despondence. They intercept problems, and intercede with teachers when students aren’t getting along with them. They teach their students how to constructively handle problems and hurdle obstacles in a non-antagonistic way. They advise them of their student rights.

“Stabilization is a major factor,” Jones said. “Retention is most important: we follow our students from day one, teach them how to jump through the hoops, and make sure they graduate.”

EOP was born out of the strike that originated at SF State and spread to UC Berkeley, shutting down the campuses during the entire 1968-1969 academic year. Faculty teamed with students and organizations -- including Students for a Democratic Society, Black Panthers and Third-World Liberation Front -- and fought for equal rights for all students. Since then, EOP, along with Black Studies Department and Black Students Union, have been instrumental in California universities success in including people of color in higher education, according to Jones.

Before the strike, only three percent of the students at SF State were black, Jones said. They, along with all children of the working poor who wanted an education, were forced to attend community colleges and vocational schools and tracked every step of the way to ensure there would be enough blue-collar jobs and a manufacturing base for big businesses profits and competitiveness. No classes taught that.

“People think that EOP is a Black program, or a Latino program, or an Asian program,” Jones said. “We’re a low-economics program, so anybody who is economically disadvantaged is viable for this program –- we’re not race based.”

According to information provided by the California Faculty Association, the statewide cuts to EOP, Extended Opportunities Program and Services (at California’s community colleges), and CSU’s General Fund Outreach programs will reduce the budget by $23 million. Jones explained that there have always been administrators and politicians who said these programs haven’t been effective, but evidence says otherwise.

According to EOP Interim Director, Ginger Yamamoto, their students represent approximately 12 percent of the campus’ 20,500 students, and their average exiting GPA last year was 2.83: a photo-finish victory over the 2.82 average for regular admits. Last year, a record 444 EOP students graduated. And according to numbers provided by CFA, $5 for every $1 invested in California’s college students is generated into the economy after they enter the workforce.

EOP students' top ten majors include medical, social work, computer science, radio and television broadcasting, business administration, and engineering. Famous alumni include U.S. House Representative Joe Baca, 43rd District, California; National Cable Communications Account Executive Donna Wilson-Ferguson; and actor and activist Danny Glover.

Yamamoto said she wants Gov. Schwarzenegger to take a long, hard look at himself, where he came from, and what he’s doing.

“We’re not just some line-item for him to eliminate,” she said.

Of the current EOP students who might face having to quit school is freshman Eduardo Trejo, 19. He meets with his SSS tutors two hours every week –- it’s mandatory. His advisors give him a progress report to take to his English and math teachers; his advisors and tutors focus his subsequent sessions on the report. He loves it.

“Most of the counselors here have gone through what we’re going through,” Trejo said.

Trejo is the first in his family to attend college in the U.S. Unlike regular-admits, EOP students need two letters of recommendation and a personal statement. Trejo explains that gettting the letters and writing the personal statement made him feel better about himself before he even got here.

“[Schwarzenegger] is being unfair,” he said. “People need help, like myself –-first generation college students.”

Alma Zavala, 20, a sophomore majoring in criminal justice said EOP didn’t just help her get into SF State, they helped her with her financial aid application, and she used her EOP grant to attend summer classes.

“[EOP] is the main reason I’m here,” Zavala said. She then added that they helped her stay here. “If it wasn’t for the tutoring and advising, I still wouldn’t know what to take. Now, a lot of my friends, (non-EOP students), come to me asking for advice.” Like many EOP students, she learned of the program while she was still in high school.

The coordinator for the Pre-Collegiate Community Outreach Programs, Xochitl Sanchez-Zarama, said that despite intense budget cuts to her program last year, it still reaches approximately 3,000 high school, middle school, and even 4th and 5th grade students, in schools so under-budgeted the kids have to share dilapidated books and are on a free lunch program. Through tutoring, workshops, mentoring, campus tours, and even mock college admission applications, they now have services and the information they need to help realize their dreams.

Like most EOP staff, she survived similar, counterproductive familial and educational environments to finally give something back to her community.

“It’s me I see in the faces of these students,” Sanchez-Zarama said. “[Closing EOP] is a deliberate attack on ‘Access and Education for All."

Her student assistant of two years, Cynthia Borboa, 23, a junior majoring in child and adolescence development, doesn’t know where to turn if the program is shut down. She said there is no way she can continue her education without the across-the-board support she has received through EOP.

Raised in Firebaugh, Calif., Borboa said she had no hope for the future. If she finishes college, she wants to become a guidance counselor for either high school or junior high school kids.

“This is the end of the line for a lot of us,” Borboa said. “I’d like to believe I can make it on pure determination, but that’s not a reality; you need help.”

According to Borboa, EOP is her family, and was a “positive turning point in every aspect of her life.”

EOP advisor Bobby Farlice has 30 years of counseling experience and specializes in media enhancement. Since day one he has worked closely with EOP students with BECA majors and has collected shelves of media that enhance and support the program. As a young adult he threw himself into the middle of the Civil Rights movement, and has seen first-hand the impact and efficacy of activism. But he said it’s different now.

“They’d love for us to rebel-rouse so they can come in and bust some heads,” said Farlice. As he sees it, a cut like this is just one of the weapons the powers-at-be use in class-warfare. “I’m not ethno-centric, we’re all in the same boat – it’s about information, that’s how you get the folks,” he said. “Everybody’s in trouble: 80 percent of [California’s] credentialed teachers come from CSUs. We need good teachers.”

According to Jones, one month before Gov. Schwarzenegger took office, the California State Assembly declared September 2003 “Educational Opportunity Program Month.” And, like 35 years ago, if this budget is passed, economically disadvantaged students will be forced back into community colleges and vocational training.

The EOP office encourages anyone interested in trying to help save the program to sign the petition at the front desk and write Gov. Schwarzenegger, their state senators and assemblypersons. There is also a town hall meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 29, 5-7 p.m. in Jack Adams Hall.