Puente Project

Teresa Guadiana, the Co-Director/Counselor of Puente since its founding, has worked for COS for 22 years. David Hurst, the Co-Director/English Instructor of Puente for the past year, has been with COS for two years. The program’s overall budget is $10,000.     Puente has four main components: (1) First-year students take English 251 (Intro to Academic Writing) in the fall and English 001 (College Reading and Composition) in the spring.  The content of both courses focuses on Latino authors and issues.  The same instructor teaches both classes while offering extra support to assist students in developing their writing skills.  These classes are taken concurrently with Counseling 120AB (Student Success), a study skills class. (2) Puente students work closely with their counselor, meeting several times each semester to develop an educational plan with a view to transferring to a four-year institution, and for personal counseling. (3) Students are matched with professionals from the community who share their knowledge and experience. (4) Puente students take educational field trips to universities each year and attend an annual statewide Puente Conference.  Additionally, the Puente Club helps students develop leadership skills by organizing community service projects and fundraising events.     The mission of the program triangulates consistent, high-quality academic counseling, accelerated writing instruction, and mentoring to build a strong support system for students. The academic counseling program is sensitive to and makes use of the strengths of Latino cultural traditions. For example, the content of sessions is culturally relevant, drawing examples from the students’ lives and common experiences. The writing courses are also deliberately responsive to the students' backgrounds. They combine books and essays from notable Latino authors to create a rich, reflective base from which students can develop and explore their own ideas in their writing.  Both the counselor and the English instructor participate in regular training workshops (at least once a semester as well as during the summer) provided by the state Puente office, which introduce new books and readings by Latino/a authors, and explore new ways of teaching the canon of Latino/a authors.  The workshops also expose them to recent studies and information about current national and regional issues significant to Latinos. Mentors are recruited largely from the Latino professional community, thus giving students clear and culturally relevant role models. Students are also encouraged to attend conferences such as the Latina Leadership Network Conference, MedPEP (Médicos Para El Pueblo), the Pre-Med Conference, and others that celebrate the Latino heritage and accomplishments.  Finally, the Puente Club provides cultural events for the college, the planning and execution of which underscore the pride students take in their traditions.