Payne Elected To National Board Of Directors | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post, Kelly Setzer, is a contributor to ECU News Services.

    The vice chancellor for legal affairs for East Carolina University has been elected to the board of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

    Donna Gooden Payne, university counsel and vice chancellor for legal affairs at ECU, was elected June 28 to a three-year term as a member-at-large on the Board of Directors of the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) during its annual conference in San Francisco.

    The board is composed of attorneys representing universities across the country, currently including Princeton University, University of Kentucky, the University of Michigan and Yale University.

    Payne, a member of NACUA since 2002, has served for eight years on NACUA's Editorial Board for The Journal of College and University Law. In addition, she has also served on the NACUNOTES Editorial Board, the Committee on Legal Education and the Committee on Program for the Annual Conference.

    Prior to joining ECU in 2008, Payne served as university attorney and chief of staff at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and as a partner and associate at Hester, Grady, Hester & Payne. While in private practice, she served as general counsel for Bladen Community College and for the Bladen County Board of Education. Payne's nonprofit board experience includes among others serving at the national level on the Board of Directors of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. She is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association and a certified mediator, including past service to the NC Office of State Personnel in its employee mediation and grievance process.

    A native of Bladen County, Payne is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar. She earned her law degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

    Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NACUA is the primary source of higher education law programming for its members and for the higher education community. Founded in 1960, the association serves nearly 850 public and private higher education institutions and more than 4,500 attorneys throughout the United States and internationally. NACUA produces publications (including The Journal of College and University Law), sponsors continuing education workshops (including webinars), operates a website with a multitude of higher education legal resources and establishes cooperative relationships with other associations and groups.