{"id":321508,"date":"2026-05-18T18:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/321508\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T18:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:05:09","slug":"eop-graduates-find-inclusion-and-belonging-at-fresno-state-fresno-state-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/321508\/","title":{"rendered":"EOP graduates find inclusion and belonging at Fresno State \u2013 Fresno State Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresno State checked all the boxes for Genesis Guillen, who envisioned herself a Bulldog since first visiting the campus as a little girl from Madera.<\/p>\n

It was close to home. Her brother graduated with his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Fresno State. But most of all, the university gave her a sense of inclusion and belonging, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, she received on-campus support and advising through the Fresno State Educational Opportunity Program<\/a> which supports first-generation and low-income students who face educational challenges.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love everybody from EOP \u2014 the advisers, my peer mentors \u2014 and the way they guided me,\u201d said Guillen, who graduated in only three years with her psychology degree. \u201cI felt prepared and assured with the resources \u2026 I already knew a department on campus as a freshman, and I made friends who I still talk to. You make your own little community. It was lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guillen is one of 382 students in the Educational Opportunity Program to graduate this year. A special recognition ceremony was held on May 8. In total, 1,826 undergraduate students were enrolled in the program this academic year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Created in the late 1960s, the Educational Opportunity Program was established across California State University campuses to expand access to higher education for historically underrepresented and educationally challenged students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Support services include recruitment, pre-admission counseling, orientation, summer programs, academic advising, learning skill services, and personal, educational and career counseling. Students are also provided with workshops and social events designed to foster connection, engagement and academic achievement, ensuring they are supported holistically throughout their college experience.<\/p>\n

With 10 staff members, the department is organized into two units \u2014 entering and continuing \u2014 both of which focus on supporting students from first-time freshmen through transfer and continuing students, with attention to their distinct needs at each stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cEOP has long been a cornerstone of student access and success at Fresno State. The program not only opens doors to higher education, but also ensures that students are supported well beyond admission through intentional advising, mentorship and community-building. <\/p>\n

Dr. Ruby Sangha-Rico, interim associate vice president for Student Success Services at Fresno State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur commitment is to meet students where they are and provide the guidance and resources they need to thrive academically, personally and professionally from their first day on campus through graduation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The program\u2019s Summer Bridge orientation, with two weeks of living in the dorms, got Samuel Chheng, of Fresno, hooked in 2019. He recalls a high school friend asking if he checked his Fresno State email that summer to see if he got in. He didn\u2019t see an email for Summer Bridge but took the initiative to follow up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the best thing he could have done, said Chheng, now a two-time alum who is graduating with a master\u2019s in counseling with an emphasis in student affairs and college counseling. He previously earned a bachelor\u2019s in psychology with a minor in Asian American Studies and is this year\u2019s dean\u2019s medalist<\/a> for the Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Summer Bridge helped him connect to campus and meet friends from communities outside of Fresno.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSummer Bridge is often the moment where students first realize that they\u2019re not navigating college alone,\u201d said John Lor, assistant director of the Educational Opportunity Program. \u201cIt gives them early access to campus resources, meaningful connections with peers and staff and the confidence that they belong at Fresno State. Summer Bridge is the foundation that carries them forward well beyond the summer and often shapes their entire college experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Chheng\u2019s freshman year during the COVID pandemic was hard because the physical connection to campus was lost as students went virtual, he came back the following year with a deeper connection to the Educational Opportunity Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The program helped Chheng network, build connections and encouraged him to step outside of his comfort zone to participate in things like conferences and student panels. He would become a peer mentor for three years and a graduate counselor intern when he returned to Fresno state as a graduate student. In addition to student support services, the program also provides extensive coaching, mentorship and opportunities for emerging student affairs professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cEOP created this sense of belonging for me. It really opened up the floor to everything. I underestimated how powerful this program was for me, because at the time, I felt like I was pretty self-sustainable. I didn\u2019t really need that much support in navigating through the transition to my freshman year of college,\u201d Chheng said. \u201cBut then I look back, and it was always the advocacy. It was always the intentional outreach \u2014 my counselors reaching out to me, my peer mentors in the program reaching out to me. All of these things were pretty much stepping stones and kind of really made me think that this program\u2019s helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno State checked all the boxes for Genesis Guillen, who envisioned herself a Bulldog since first visiting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-321508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}