"Puente Counselor"

Position Title

Puente Counselor

Description of Position

Diablo Valley College (DVC) invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track Puente Counselor/Coordinator, beginning August 2026 at the Pleasant Hill Campus. This primarily in-person position provides culturally responsive academic, career, and personal counseling; teaches Puente counseling courses; and coordinates program activities designed to support persistence, retention, and transfer success for Puente students.

The Puente Project, founded in 1981 at Chabot College, was created to address the barriers faced by Chicanx/Latinx and first-generation students in higher education. Built on three core components: English instruction, sustained counseling, and mentoring by members of the professional community, Puente has become a nationally recognized model for equity and student achievement. DVC has been home to the Puente Program since 1996, offering linked English, counseling, and has expanded to include a racialized Latinx Political Science course along with mentoring and cultural enrichment activities.

At DVC, the Puente Counselor works closely with students to identify career goals, develop comprehensive educational plans, and prepare for transfer to four-year universities. The Counselor also teaches personal development courses, collaborates with English faculty as a co-coordinator, and supports students through proactive, equity-focused interventions. In addition, the Puente Counselor/Coordinator recruits and trains mentors, organizes family and community events such as Noche de Familia and motivational conferences, and oversees administrative functions including program review, data reporting, and outreach.

This position offers an opportunity to make a transformative impact on students and their families, advancing Diablo Valley Colleges commitment to equity, social justice, and student success through the nationally recognized Puente model.

Duties and Responsibilities

In addition to contractual faculty responsibilities, the Puente Counselor/Coordinator is expected to actively participate in their discipline, department, and the broader intellectual life and governance of the college. This role may require occasional evening and weekend assignments to best serve students and the program.

The specific duties of the Puente Counselor/Coordinator include:

1. Providing individual and group counseling for Puente students and those interested in the program, using varied, culturally responsive strategies that honor students diverse backgrounds and learning styles to support their educational, career, and personal goal setting and decision-making.
2. Teaching counseling and career courses and facilitating workshops designed to support Puente students and those interested in the program with sensitivity and commitment to motivating, counseling, and teaching traditionally underrepresented students, including Chicanx/Latinx, low-income, first-generation, undocumented, and other underrepresented students.
3. Establishing and maintaining a positive, supportive, and motivating environment that encourages students to persist and achieve their transfer goals.
4. Assisting students in the development of abbreviated and comprehensive educational plans to support retention, completion, and transfer.
5. Collaborating closely with instructional faculty to support shared institutional goals, particularly in linked Puente courses and learning communities.
6. Participating fully in college governance processes by attending department and division meetings, and serving on college-wide committees, especially those that address Puente, first-generation students, and Chicanx/Latinx student success.
7. Participating in ongoing professional growth and development, including participation in required Puente Statewide training and the Puente Summer Institute, to remain current with effective counseling practices and student support interventions, while contributing to innovation, improvement of counseling and teaching, and active engagement in shared governance.
8. Performing other assigned duties consistent with faculty responsibilities, which may include work outside of regular business hours.
9. Coordinating the Puente Program, including planning, implementing, and evaluating events and activities that promote student retention and transfer; recruiting prospective students; supporting educational planning for current and incoming students; recruiting, training, and coordinating professional mentors; and attending Puente-linked English courses to provide integrated student support.

Minimum Qualification-Education/Experience

Understanding of and sensitivity to the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, sexual orientation and ethnic backgrounds of community college students, staff and faculty.

The applicant must possess one of the following qualifications (earned degrees must be from an accredited college/university):

Masters in counseling, rehabilitation counseling, clinical psychology, counseling psychology, guidance counseling, educational counseling, social work, career development, marriage and family therapy or marriage, family and child counseling,

OR the equivalent

(NOTE: A bachelors degree in one of the listed degrees and a license as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) is an alternative qualification for this discipline.)

Desirable Qualifications

1. Background and experience in providing academic, career and personal counseling to first-generation, Chicanx/Latinx community college students;
2. Experience teaching career planning, college orientation, college success, career/life planning or other courses and workshops, particularly those connected to a learning community and related to orienting underrepresented, first-generation, Chicanx/Latinx college students to college, transfer, career, student success and other support services;
3. Experience and/or commitment to coordinating a cohort model learning community including planning and implementing college tours, outside of class events, cultural activities, community mentor program;
4. Experience and/or commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration. This includes planning, budgeting, teaching linked courses and creating dovetailed assignments and activities to foster transfer readiness and academic skills in students, who are primarily Chicanx/Latinx, low-income, first-generation college students;
5. Bilingual/Bi-cultural in Spanish & English.

Salary

Initial salary placement for full-time, tenure track positions is based on academic degree(s), upper/graduate level units earned, teaching experience and/or qualifying related professional occupation experience which ranges from $68,136 to $112,848 per year (Up to $132k).

Location

Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill Campus

Job Open Date

12/09/2025

Job Close Date

02/25/2026

Employment Begins

2026 Fall

How to Apply

Interested applicants must submit all of the application materials online to be considered for this position. Quick Link