ODU Board of Visitors Member to Receive Honorary Degree from N.C. State

Sarita E. Brown, Old Dominion University Board of Visitors member, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at North Carolina State University's spring commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 9.

Brown, the founding president of Excelencia in Education, was appointed to the Board of Visitors on Dec. 10, 2008. She currently serves as a member of the Academic and Research Advancement, and Student Advancement committees.

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 provide opportunities for low-income and minority students. She continues to serve as president of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit organization that works to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy and practice to serve Latino students.

From 1997 to 2000, she served as executive director of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans under President Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. In 2003-04, she continued to focus on federal policy and Latino higher educational success as senior fellow at the Pew Hispanic Center while incubating Excelencia in Education, which was launched in Washington, D.C., in June 2004.