Puente

Puente at Porterville 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 Porterville College is here to help students build the skills they need to succeed in college and in their future career.

Once students enroll in the Puente program, they will work closely with the Puente Counselor, English Professor, Math Professor, and Mentor to prepare for transfer to a four-year university.

Students attend and participate in a Puente Orientation, events, conferences, luncheons, field trips to universities, and get to 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

   

• STSS P105: College Planning and Success: Designed for goal setting, college skill building and exercises in critical thinking and stress management, and making informed decisions about academic planning for college and career success. Students take a Student Success course with the Counselor who will also provide counseling services to all Puente students.

• 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

• Math Instruction: Enrollment in a math course

Math P122 – Introduction to Probability and Statistics

Enrollment in a college-level statistics course. This course helps students get more comfortable with interpreting numbers and sets of data. It allows for data to be organized and described in a way that relates to students lived experiences.

• 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