Merced College English Professor Michael Barba and Guidance Counselor Enrique Renteria have spent the past 23 years becoming good friends while shaping the Puente Program on campus.

“Enrique is one of my best friends, in addition to being a co-coordinator,” Barba said. “He’s been to the baptisms of my kids.”

“Mike is a great friend,” Renteria said. “We’ve shared laughs and memories that have nothing to do with work. We share our lives, and that helps our work.”

That friendship between the Puente co-coordinators has fueled a steady evolution for the program which, in the process, has become a model for other chapters in the California Community College (CCC) system.

The colleagues met when they took over coordination of the Puente Program—Barba as English instructor and Renteria as counselor—in 2003. They had to meet weekly to fulfill state requirements.

“It worked out that first or second semester that we could meet at lunchtime,” Barba said. “Meeting for lunch was more conducive to building rapport than the professional part. The one year we couldn’t meet at lunch, we were always in a bad mood. We learned what worked by accident.”

Renteria added, “The year we met without food, we were so unhappy. Anytime we meet and eat now, we’re so ready for it.”

Both men have a good sense of humor and humility. Asked about their individual strengths, they say they share responsibilities and contribute equally.

Said Barba, “I think we’re better sharing the spotlight than taking it.”

The mission of the Puente Project, founded in 1981, was to find better ways to support Hispanic students—the program is now geared toward any students who are educationally underrepresented—to earn bachelor’s degrees.

The students face a range of socioeconomic challenges. Puente’s approach in the CCC leans on cohorts, mentoring, college visits and bespoke support (including financial aid, basic needs, and academic planning) to prepare them to transfer to four-year universities.

Experience Brings Wisdom

Throughout their 23 years running the program, Barba and Renteria have hit on some effective methods. To start, the team has elevated their curriculum.

Barba teaches the English courses, Renteria the guidance course. Phase 1 Puente students take C1000: Intro to College Composition and Reading along with Guidance 30 in the fall. Phase 2 students then split the spring semester into 8-week blocks for C1001: Critical Thinking and Writing and C1002: Intro to Literature.

“By that second semester, they know Michael’s style,” Renteria said. “He’s expecting more and requiring more and saying, at the same time, ‘You can do this.’

“Other programs only do critical thinking. We wanted them to be prepared to write academically when they go to university. We give them more exposure to that.”

During their remaining time at the college, the Phase 3 students meet regularly with Renteria while plotting their eventual transfer to a four-year university.

“It’s important for me to keep a presence in their lives,” Renteria said. “Then the students see me and Mike as a team.”

They also control costs for students. Barba has a stock of novels he teaches for his students, and they have built up their own lending library with Chicano authors. Renteria’s guidance students also use free, open resource books. Class content has to speak to their lives.

“It’s against the law for us to select students for the program by ethnicity or race,” Barba said. “But we can still delve into topics that resonate with Chicanos and that include universal themes, so no student feels left out. We’re very proud that we regularly have the most diverse program in the state.”

Work Together, Play Together

Grace Ebron, Director of Community College Programs at the Puente Project, said Barba and Renteria are the longest-running Puente Program coordinators in the state. She said she admires how the duo approaches students and work “with love and respect.”

Beyond merely serving Merced College students, their work has contributed to best practices that have benefited the Puente Project overall.

“They intentionally set aside time during the summer to plan the year together, including program activities and curriculum,” said Ebron, who met Barba and Renteria in 2005. “This would allow for similar themes in classes to be highlighted, with the learning reinforced in both classes. We now recommend that Puente faculty co-coordinators set aside time to connect to plan for the year together.”

Renteria and Barba say their summer meet-ups are about shared vacation time as much as they are about work. They have traveled to Las Vegas to get away together and unwind—previously with another longtime Puente colleague, English Professor Vince Piro. One summer, they went to comedy shows. For another, they bought 24-hour unlimited buffet tickets and indulged at four different stops. For another, they visited the Grand Canyon.

“We’d have fun and debrief about the year, but the trip wasn’t specifically Puente-related,” Barba said. “We built our rapport that way.

“We went to a state event once, and they asked us what we get done during those trips. We just said that it’s not a formal thing, but we’re relaxed, so ideas and solutions just float to the surface.”

Other successful tactics emerged while trying to recruit mentors.

“Larger campuses have a more robust mentoring component, with one mentor per student,” Barba said. “We’ve had problems managing that. So now we have mentor panels. We try to recruit mentors who studied the majors as our students, or we get good professionals, who make good role models in general, to speak to our students.”

Barba and Renteria also began holding mentor dinners. They bring Puente students from the year before to eat and connect with students who are new to the program.

“They share what to expect, what’s coming up,” Barba said. “So our students’ first Puente mentors are peers. It makes for a good transition.”

Ganas to Help Students Thrive

Merced College has so many successful alumni to call to fill mentor panels.

Consider Javier Tellez Larios, a 2012 Merced College graduate who went on to earn a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Merced in 2015. Tellez Larios, now a mechanical designer in the National Security Engineering Division at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, was born in Mexico, where you only go to college if you have money.

When he came to the U.S. at age 15, he didn’t know English, and he had little ambition but to survive an American high school. As a senior, he met Renteria, who introduced him to the Puente Program.

“All of it seemed strange to me,” Tellez Larios said. “But Puente gave me a chance. Without Puente, I wouldn’t be here.”

It’s a familiar story for Puente students, who achieve a course success rate that averages around 10% higher than the district average. That number rose to about 19% higher during the post-COVID years of 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Contributing to that post-COVID success was Barba and Renteria’s decision to return to campus as quickly as possible, even when faculty were given the choice to either return to campus or continue remote teaching for 2021-22.

“Even with the specter of COVID, we knew there was no way we could build the rapport needed in Puente, to build familia, without being with our students,” Barba said.

The friendship between Barba and Renteria, and their own lived experience, give the college’s Puente Program stability. These men see it as something more.

“It’s ganas,” Renteria said, using a Spanish word that means will, desire, or best intentions. “When we hear back from students, it replenishes our supply. No matter what our resources are, we have plenty of ganas.”