2025 AOY Honoree, W. A. Franke Honors College - Class of 2000
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.
