Sarita E. Brown
President
Excelencia in Education

Sarita E. Brown is president of Excelencia in Education, a not-for-profit organization working to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy, and practice to serve Latino students. She has spent more than two decades at prominent national educational institutions and at the highest levels of government working to implement effective strategies to raise academic achievement and opportunity for low-income and minority students.

Brown started her career at the University of Texas at Austin by building a national model promoting minority success in graduate education. Coming to the nation’s capitol in 1993 to work for educational associations, she was appointed as executive director of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans under President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Maintaining her commitment to improving the quality of education, Brown applied her talents and experience to the not-for-profit sector and in 2004 co-founded Excelencia in Education.

Brown currently serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Inc., the National College Access Network (NCAN) and on advisory boards for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. In January 2009, Governor Timothy M. Kaine appointed her to the Board of Visitors for Old Dominion University.

An outstanding public speaker, Brown travels throughout the country to advocate for Latino college-going talent. Her writing on the topic includes her chapter; “Making the Next Generation Our Greatest Resource” in Latinos in the Nation’s Future (2009) edited by Henry Cisneros and published by Arte Público Press.