Credit: Nick Romanenko

From left to right, EOF Manager Barbara Harmon, Associate Dean Eddie Manning, and Counselor Simone Mack Bright are playing a key role in bringing the commemoration of EOF to Rutgers on November 14 and 15. The program began in the late 1960s in response to higher education inequalities and the civil rights movement at large.

The Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) in New Jersey was established in 1968 – one year after summer disturbances in Newark, triggered by racial inequalities, forced the state to examine inequalities in higher education for minorities and other disadvantaged groups.

Forty years later, the program is as strong as ever, with 12,000 students enrolled at more than 50 colleges and universities across the state. EOF has ensured that thousands of students, like Rutgers College senior Asha Bailey, enrolled and stayed in college when the alternative was very real.

“I didn’t know very much about [EOF],” said Bailey, recalling her application process. “It was a little box asking if you were eligible. I knew that I didn’t really have the money to pay for college...If I didn’t check off that box, I have no idea whether I would be in school or not.”

Bailey, who graduated from Science High School in Newark, is now president of the statewide Alliance of EOF Students of New Jersey. The group is just one indication of the organizational force and influence the EOF program has attained over 40 years.

There is a statewide professional association for EOF counselors, and on November 14 and 15 at the 40th anniversary banquet in New Brunswick, the EOF Statewide Alumni Association will officially come into existence. The gala will take place at the Rutgers Student Center and feature several keynote speakers, including Rutgers’ Vice President for Public Affairs Jeannine LaRue, an EOF alumna from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University).

“We wanted a school that was centrally located,” said Barbara Harmon, president of the New Jersey EOF Professional Association and a manager in the EOF program at the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS). “Rutgers has so much to offer and is such a well-known institution. It is apropos that it will be here.”

The event will be an opportunity for professional staff and alumni to network and participate in workshops. Four current EOF students will receive $600 scholarships, in addition to their financial aid packages.

The EOF Alumni Association will continue all those activities, and it will also serve as a means for the 30,000 EOF alumni to advocate for continued program support. “We want...these individuals to advocate on the state level for the program, so it can continue for years to come,” said Simone Mack Bright, co-chair of the alumni association and a senior counselor in SAS EOF. “They are lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, and we want to have these alumni go before the state legislature.”

“We had self-esteem-building seminars where we were taught that we really are as good as the kid next to us in our classes...While we were there, we were truly like a family.”

– Jeannine LaRue, Rutgers' vice president for public affairs and EOF alumna

At the 40th anniversary celebration, some of the programming will focus on the historical perspective of EOF, something that many students do not understand when they are accepted into the program.

As president of the statewide student association, Bailey prepared a presentation on EOF history. “I learned so much more about the struggle that this program came out of,” Bailey said. “It started out as a diamond in the rough. This diamond is now sparkling, but it definitely came through turmoil and through struggle.”

Eddie Manning, an associate dean who heads up the SAS EOF program, agrees that the program has evolved. Initially focusing on race and ethnic disparities, the program now focuses on students with an economic need, across races and nationalities. What has not changed is these students’ need for assistance.

“The original intent was for these programs to come into place, and then they would be done away with [once the need was fulfilled],” Manning said. “Forty years later, the need is greater than it has ever been and the programs are in need now more than ever.”

In addition to financial assistance, what has characterized EOF programs at Rutgers, and other higher education institutions, is the academic and personal support that students receive throughout their college careers and even before. Enrolled EOF students participate in summer programs, where they take courses to prepare them for college-level reading, writing, and quantitative studies. They also receive counseling on how to manage college life, with the goal of helping them stay in school and graduate.

“There weren’t many people of color on campus at that time,” said LaRue, referring to the early 1970s when she attended Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) as an EOF student. “We had self-esteem-building seminars where we were taught that we really are as good as the kid next to us in our classes...While we were there, we were truly like a family.”

“Like family” is a refrain echoed by EOF participants, whether students, staff, or alumni. “EOF students really are connected to their actual program – that’s their family,” said Harmon. Harmon’s office is on Douglass Campus, and she is an alumna of the EOF program at The College of New Jersey.

“I came from a single-parent background. My mother was a domestic. Her mother was a domestic, and her mother was a domestic,” Harmon said. “My mother said the only way to move up from this is to get an education.

“Just having that person on campus who cares about you really ensures your academic success. They treat you like family,” Harmon said.