Puente at Bakersfield College
We have the goal of creating leaders for the next generation. We believe in our students'
potential and ability to achieve their academic and career goals. The Puente Project
at Bakersfield College is here to help students build the skills they need to succeed
in college and in their future careers.
Once students enroll in the Puente program, they will work closely with the Puente Counselor, English Professor, and Mentor to prepare for transfer to a four-year university.
Students attend and participate in Puente Orientation, events, conferences, luncheons, and field trips to universities, and spend quality time with their Puente familia.
Once a Puentista, always a Puentista!
Our Mission
Puente means "bridge" in Spanish. The Puente Project is a national award-winning program that, for 40 years, has improved the college-going rate of tens of thousands of California's educationally underrepresented students.
Puente's mission is to increase the number of educationally underrepresented students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities, earn degrees, and return to their communities as leaders and mentors to future generations. Puente is open to all students.
What Puente Offers Students
- Counseling Services & Enrollment in a Student Success Course
- Counseling Services:
- Academic, career, transfer, and personal counseling
- Refer students to services and resources on and off campus
- English Instruction: Enrollment in two English courses
ENGL C1000 – Expository Composition
This course is part of the Puente Project, a one-year transfer-centered
learning community open to all students who meet the Puente eligibility criteria. The
content of the course focuses on multicultural and social justice issues, including the study of writing, paragraph development, essay organization, logic, writing process, and research paper writing. Readings in a variety of rhetorical modes are used as models for writing. Instruction and experience in writing research papers. Students are graded based on meeting class requirements unique to the course content as taught by the instructor. Students enrolling in Puente who receive credit in the fall semester will continue into the respective Puente course in the spring semester. All students will be required to participate in all course and project activities, i.e., counseling and mentoring. For further information, please contact the Puente counselor
ENGL C1001 - Argumentative Writing and Critical Thinking Through Literature
This course is part of the Puente Project, a one-year transfer-centered learning
community open to all students who meet the Puente eligibility criteria. The content of the course focuses on multicultural and social justice issues, along with a study of fiction, poetry, and drama representing a variety of cultural experiences from different critical viewpoints. All this is covered with an emphasis on analytical, critical, and argumentative writing and thinking. Students’ grades are based on meeting class requirements unique to the course content as taught by the instructor. For further information, please contact the Puente Counselor.
Mentoring
Each Puente student is matched with a mentor from the community. Mentors share with students their personal, academic, and career experiences, and provide a window into "real-life" work environments. The network of trained Puente mentors provides many resources for Puente students, their families, colleagues, and the community.
Origins of Puente
Puente was founded in 1981 by the Co-directors, Felix Galaviz and Patricia McGrath
at Chabot Community College in Hayward, California. The program has since expanded
to 4 middle schools, 38 high schools, and 65 community colleges throughout the state.
Puente staff train middle school, high school, and community college instructors and
counselors to implement a program of rigorous instruction, focused academic counseling
and mentoring by members of the community. Puente's staff training programs have benefited
approximately 300,000 students across the state.
Its mission is to increase the number of educationally disadvantaged students who enroll in four-year colleges and universities, earn college degrees, and return to the community as mentors and leaders to future generations. The program is interdisciplinary in approach, with writing, counseling, and mentoring components. Puente is open to all students.
Puente has seen great results including:
- More than 5,500 community college students have enrolled in the Puente Project statewide
- More than 2,000 professionals donate more than 18,000 hours to help Puente students annually
- An estimated 200,000 non-Puente students have benefited from Puente's staff development programs
- Community colleges with Puente programs transfer 44 percent more Latino students to the University of California than colleges without Puente
