On the bridge between high school and college, living at home or on your own, a good mentor sets an example, provides guidance and opens doors of opportunity. Junior college students especially need help staying motivated, finding a major and transferring to universities.
For Geoff Navarro, a counselor at the Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma campus, the academic guidance was never there, but he always understood the importance of mentorship.
Walking through campus, he smiles and waves at students he knows, greets them like peers and talks to them with respect.
A MESA student at Healdsburg High School, Navarro played basketball and volunteered as a sixth-grade counselor his senior year. He combined his two passions, writing and basketball, choosing a major in journalism at Chico State University in hopes of becoming a sports writer. His first semester, he excelled in Chicano Studies which piqued his budding interest in culture.
“That was one of my classes, between my dad and I, we got right,” Navarro said.
Since his parents didn’t go to college, it was a matter of chance whether the courses he chose would be helpful or of interest to him.
Navarro came home to Sonoma County to take summer classes at SRJC while still attending Chico State. Through an organization at Chico called CAVE, Community Action Volunteers in Education, Navarro volunteered in the Hermanos y Hermanas Latinos Unidos program. He mentored elementary school-aged children of migrant farmworkers, who couldn’t spend as much time with their parents as they would have liked. Navarro played soccer with them, helped with their homework and tried to set a good example, similar to his senior year in high school as a sixth-grade counselor.
“Those two experiences really helped me, kind of shaped the importance of being a role model, giving back to the community and just the positive impact on youth,” Navarro said.
Navarro’s hard-working parents and Mr. Ramirez, a math teacher at his high school who was a hero for many Latino students, provided strong role models.
After earning his bachelor’s at Chico, he earned his master’s in counseling from San Diego State University, and worked in Mendocino County before coming to SRJC six years ago.
From the beginning of his time at SRJC he’s participated in the Puente Project, and is the coordinator for Puente, “Bridge” in Spanish, on the Petaluma campus.
“It’s a program for students who want to transfer to universities,” Navarro said.
Puente students take English and counseling classes to prepare them for the university level. Each gets paired with a mentor who guides the students through the academics and offers insight into their student’s chosen field of study.
“That’s important for the students because they get a full view of what it’s like to work in criminal justice, or nursing, or medicine, or education or whatever it is, and a lot of students, if they didn’t have that piece, they wouldn’t know the power of social capital, and those aspects of what it takes to be a professional,” Navarro said.
In addition to classes and mentoring, Navarro takes groups of Puente students on field trips, exposing them to universities and cultural events. Recent destinations include the UC Berkeley campus, San Francisco State’s campus and the Photography of Mexico exhibit.
He feels if students increase their social capital by learning to network, experiencing culture and earning degrees, they will eventually increase their monetary capital.
“Students are very wealthy in different aspects of capital,” Navarro said.
Navarro uses his social capital as a counselor and a Latino to reach out to as many different students as he can, because they might be in the same situation he was: lacking the proper resources and academic support.
“Our community lacks understanding of the needs that underserved students have. Geoff Navarro is a leader and goes above and beyond daily to provide assistance to those most in need,” said SRJC professor and Puente mentor Rafael Vasquez.
When Navarro’s not mentoring college students, he is a full-time dad to his three daughters. He still loves basketball, and enjoys going to plays, art events and comedy shows.
Not one to forget his roots, Navarro returns to Healdsburg High School each semester to educate seniors on the importance of college.
“That’s what we want our students to do, when they graduate from college, and they’re professionals, whether they live in Sonoma County or wherever they live, is to give back to community,” Navarro said. “It’s a cycle, you know what I mean, and they’ll hopefully chose to be mentors for the next generation.”
