Rolanda C Burney, chief of staff in the UMass Amherst Chancellor’s Office, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Presidential Assistants in Higher Education (NAPAHE).

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NAPAHE is an international organization for presidential assistants (PAs) and other professionals supporting higher education leaders, offering many resources founded on a framework of cooperative association. Cultivating alliances with each other, likeminded organizations and institutions, it provides members a venue to share professional experiences and ideas that spearhead success.

Burney has extensive experience in higher education, especially in governance, board leadership, crisis management, strategic planning and implementation, and development of policies, programs and services that support institutional mission. She joined UMass Amherst in 2017 as the chief of staff in the Chancellor’s Office, and also served as interim vice chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life from June 2019 to January 2020.

She has worked as a consultant for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, leading the Frontier Set Initiative, a partnership of 31 public and private colleges, universities, community colleges and university systems created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help colleges increase the number of graduates among minority, first-generation, low-income and non-traditional students.

Prior to that, she served for three years as chief of staff at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, a private, historically black women’s college, where she worked closely with the president on enacting college-wide strategic and leadership initiatives and also with the college’s board of trustees on its operational and administrative functions.

Burney served as special assistant to the president at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for seven years, where she worked with the president and senior staff to shape and manage the strategic agenda for the president and university.  

She earned her Ph.D. in organizational leadership from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; her M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina Wilmington; and her B.A. in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.