Associate Professor of Education Ivannia Soto was inducted into the Whittier High School Hall of Fame for her contributions to the field of education, specifically for her contributions to the field of second language acquisition as well as giving back to Whittier High School via service learning projects with Whittier College students in her Urban Education academic course.
For the past 17 years, the Whittier High School Alumni Association Educational Foundation has honored alumni who have made distinctive contributions to their respective fields. The first honoree was President Richard Nixon who is also a Whittier College alumnus. This year, Soto was the youngest hall of fame inductee as a graduate of the class of 1994 and was honored along side of John Lasseter (class of 1975,) founder of Pixar and director of Toy Story, as well as Steve Saleen (class of 1967) inventor of muscle cars, or super cars, featured in movies such as Fast and Furious.
Soto attended Biola University where she earned a B.A. in English, a master’s degree in education and a professional clear credential in English. Continuing her education, she earned a master’s in school counseling from University of La Verne and a Ph.D. in urban education and a credential in administrative services from Claremont Graduate University.
She has taught at Biola University and Claremont Graduate University and was a consultant and contributor at Stanford University, where she was part of the School Redesign Network, a center that worked to redesign large high schools to smaller learning communities and to address the complex challenges that confront urban school systems.
Soto has been on the faculty of Whittier College since 2009 and is presently an associate professor of education and department chair. Since 2014, Soto has been executive director of the Institute for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (ICLRT) at Whittier College, an institute whose mission is to promote relevant research and develop academic resources for diverse student populations via linguistically and culturally responsive teaching practices.
