Dr. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto Named 2024-25 Franke Honors Alumna of the Year
The W.A. Franke Honors College acknowledges Dr. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto as our 2024-25 Alumna of the Year (AOY). This award is given to graduates who have bestowed honor on the college through significant contributions and accomplishments that embody the mission of the W.A. Franke Honors College, pursuing their passions with wonder and purpose.
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto is a professor and dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. She previously served as assistant dean at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Victoria is the first Latina dean at a presidential institution and is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administrators. She previously taught at Northwestern University and Rutgers and received her doctorate in political science from Duke University. Her areas of expertise include civic engagement, women, immigration, Latinos and political psychology. Victoria has spent over two decades bridging the realms of academia, practitioners, community and media in her quest to cultivate public service engagement.
An award-winning professor, Victoria is deeply passionate about the intersection of curricular and community-based learning and cultivating dynamic classroom environments that are responsive to our real-world context. As the dean of the Clinton School, Victoria grounds her passion to support the next generation of public service leaders in the expansion of diversity, equity and inclusion inside and outside the classroom.
Victoria serves on the board of Mi Familia en Acción and Forward Arkansas, and she is active in the Volcker Alliance Dean’s Summit. She was recognized as one the 100 Women of Impact by the Arkansas Women’s Foundation and received the Las Primeras Award by MANA.
Born and raised on the U.S.-Mexico border, Victoria is of Mexican-Italian-Jewish descent. She is a proud graduate of the University of Arizona’s W.A. Franke Honors College.
Dr. DeFrancesco Soto will be recognized at the annual AOY awards ceremony on February 27, amongst other prominent UArizona Alumni.
Get to know Dr. DeFrancesco Soto!
In the fall of 2023, Dr. DeFrancesco Soto joined Dean Pollard for a conversation about public service on our podcast, It's an Honor. In this episode, Dr. DeFrancesco Soto breaks down public service and what it looks like across disciplines, the power of frustration in enacting change and helping her advance to where she is today, her parallel career in public service and political analysis in the media, how her lived experience informs her nuanced approach to analysis in issues such as border policy, and more.