President
Excelencia in Education
Sarita E. Brown is founding President of Excelencia in Education (Excelencia), a national not for profit organization working to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy, and practice to serve Latino students.
A recognized thought leader in higher education, Ms. Brown 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. She 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, Ms. Brown was appointed 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. Ms. Brown later applied her talents and experience to the not-for-profit sector and in 2004, co-founded Excelencia in Education.
Launched in 2004, Excelencia has filled a crucial information gap for policymakers, institutional leaders, and the Latino community. The organization has become a trusted source of data and information on the status of Latino higher educational achievement, a major resource for influencing policy at the state and national levels, and a widely recognized advocate for expanding promising practices to accelerate Latino student success in college. As President, Ms. Brown advances an asset-based perspective about the growth of the American Latino community and advises educators, grantmakers and Civic Leaders. She consults with national educational organizations and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Inc., Editorial Projects in Education, Catch the Next Board and Excelencia in Education.
An effective advocate for Latino success in higher education, Ms. Brown travels throughout the country speaking on the potential benefits to the country of increasing Latino student success in higher education. Her writing on the impact for Latino college-going talent 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.
Ms. Brown was honored with the Harold G. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education for her “innovative thinking, strong leadership and accomplishment by example”. She has been recognized with numerous awards including an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from North Carolina State University and Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in Behavior Sciences from Carlos Albizu University. She holds a bachelor's of arts in ethnic studies, and a bachelor's of science and master's of arts in communication from The University of Texas at Austin.
