LBCC’s Puente program has proved more helpful than ever during the pandemic, despite being forced to host events like their annual Noche de familia via Zoom this past Oct. 7.
Noche de familia serves as the program’s orientation, where program staff introduce themselves and give student “puentistas” a sense of the support and the resources that will be available to them.
In the past the event has been used as an opportunity to forge connections between the program’s staff and students through food, mood and discussion; these connections are vital as the program provides holistic academic, counseling and community support to students from underserved backgrounds.
“It used to be like a two hour dinner… a potluck…we have community, we have ‘familia’, we shared our food.” said professor and academic counselor Vidal Vargas, who co-hosted the event with professor Darya Myers.
Moving the event online made it difficult to replicate the mood of past Noches de familia celebrations. Still, both Vargas and Myers, who act as the program’s advisors, did their best.
They played Cumbia and pop music as attendees logged on, energetically switching between English and Spanish, and encouraged students to tune in with any number of supportive family members.
According to Vargas, academic supporters are how the program refers to any kind of family, friend or mentor that provides students with support in their academic endeavors. The understanding is that students who receive proper support in their personal lives will do better in school.
Emphasizing the importance of building not only academic support groups, but emotional ones also helps students from immigrant households deal with cross-cultural and intergenerational misunderstandings.
Both Vargas and Myers are aware that many first generation and immigrant families rely on their children for income, housework and childcare; this can lead to arguments about the amount of time students have to put into school.
“A lot of the key components of what we are doing with the program need to be introduced to the family members so they understand that this is not just coming to class … they (students) need to study outside of class time … (students) get support from me, and they get support from professor Vargas, but they also need their family to support them in their academic pursuit.” Said Myers.
Because of considerations like these, demonstrating that the Puente program is more than just an academic support group is a vital part of Noche de familia.
Very little about the way LBCC’s Puente program operates changed despite going mostly online: students are still part of cohorts that look after each other and they regularly update Vidal, Myers, and their mentors via phone, zoom and email.
“They (the students) still establish their cohort in their little break out ‘familias’ (on Zoom), and they establish nice rapport with each other. I also have an embedded tutor … and Professor Vargas and I will usually schedule conferences to check in with students if they begin to miss deadlines,” said Myers.
In fact, in a time when many people have been forced to isolate, the structure of the program seems more beneficial than ever.
“With the pandemic the need to talk about mental health increased, and we’ve been able to have some delicate conversations about it.” Vargas said.
Through the program, students can confide in their mentors and counselors to support them and guide them to appropriate health services that they might not have otherwise known how to get.
Similarly, the program is helping fill some of the gaps the pandemic has left in the college experience.
“This type of program during the pandemic is so valuable… for many students this is their first college semester and this is their college experience: being at home. But through all the resources they get from Puente and the relationships they’re making… it’s giving them a little taste of a (real) college experience.” Vargas said.
Taking part in the program also gives students access to various speakers, workshops and events to encourage students to flourish, regardless of their backgrounds.
Most recently, Myers and members from some of her Puente cohorts participated in a Puente Transfer Motivational Conference for the University of California Berkeley on Oct. 15.
The Puente program provides full support to students who may be dealing with issues relating to poverty and institutional racism, so that they can succeed by attending four-year colleges and universities, earn degrees and return to their communities as leaders and mentors.
This is crucial considering that 70% of community college students fail to graduate or transfer to 4-year schools, according to research from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento.
Minority students from underserved communities with overcrowded classrooms and less access to counselors and teachers account for 47% of that number.
In this way, the combination of counseling, mentoring and intensive writing instruction in the program is designed to help students overcome a lack of educational resources, motivate them, and teach them marketable communication and networking skills that can empower them academically and beyond.
Despite the focus on overcoming obstacles that largely affect Latinx students, the program itself is open to anyone looking for support in transferring to a four-year university as long as they can meet the requirements to take English 1, English 896 and Counseling 1 in the fall.
“Our mission is to support all educationally underrepresented students … we support student equity by helping educationally underrepresented students achieve their dream of transferring to university,” said Myers.
Currently, the Puente Program has 65 branches in community colleges, 36 in middle schools, and seven in middle schools.
Students can find out more about LBCC’s Puente Program branch here, or by contacting Professors Darya Myers and Vidal Vargas at d2myers@lbcc.edu and vvargas@lbcc.edu.