2025 Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Award nominations open

Nominations for the 2025 Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Award are now open. Presented annually, the Sarah Belle Brown Community Service Award recognizes faculty, staff and students who serve as examples of social responsibility and have, over an extended period of time, contributed significant personal time and effort to advance the University of New Mexico's public service mission.

Community service is defined as service outside of the general scope of one's professional or academic assignment at UNM. Each recipient will receive a $1,500 cash award.

Nominations are due by March 12 at 5pm. The nomination criteria and the nomination link are on the President's website.

About Sarah Belle Brown
The Sarah Belle Brown Award was created by former UNM Board of Regents President and former dean of the Anderson School of Management, Doug Brown, to honor his wife. Sarah has devoted considerable time and a personal passion to community service for more than three decades in New Mexico. It's a commitment that began in high school when she worked in the ER of Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. She tutored elementary school children in Watts during college and volunteered as a Head Start aid in Marin City after graduation.

Those experiences led her to become a teacher, where she taught recently-arrived, Spanish-speaking children at LA City Schools. All subjects were taught in Spanish until the children learned enough English to study in their new language. In New Mexico, Sarah founded and managed a downtown café where she employed at least one homeless person and encouraged young employees to complete their college degrees.

Brown's community service in Albuquerque and Santa Fe has been at the Board level, including a current board trustee for the National Hispanic Cultural Center and Foundation, Tamarind Institute, NM Appleseed, The Lensic Performing Arts Center. She has also served on the boards of Women's International Study Center (WISC in Santa Fe), Amy Biehl Charter Highschool, CNM Foundation (formerly T-VI), Mt. Vernon College Trustees in Washington, D.C., Chairman of Children's Home Society of California, chairman of Chinatown After-School Program for Cantonese-speaking children in San Francisco. Also, she was in the first cohort of CASA (Court-Appointed-Special-Advocate for San Francisco Juvenile Court).

Although Brown has a busy schedule, she still makes time for her family life; and makes certain to spend time with her husband and two grown sons.

For more information about the award and or the nomination process, contact Terri Johnson at [email protected].