Norma Houston ’86: Match for a Critical COVID Mission

Posted on May 7, 2021

It was Jan. 6, and the worst of COVID-19 was yet to come when the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services asked the UNC System whether it could help with the state’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

The call came to Norma Houston ’86 (’89 JD). Knowing the answer would be when, not if, she phoned system President Peter Hans ’91, who immediately asked Houston, his chief of staff, to lead the statewide effort.

She set the goal then and there: All UNC campus clinics should be ready to vaccinate students whenever the state deems them eligible. All of the system’s chancellors offered campus facilities and resources.

Three days later, staring a logistical nightmare in the face, Houston toured the Friday Center for Continuing Education, where UNC Health was about to open a large vaccine clinic. She asked a million questions, like the emergency management expert that she is, and inhaled information.

“First, you have to identify a campus facility for the clinic, not for a day or a week but indefinitely,” she said. “It had to meet all kinds of codes and specs. Each campus needed a special freezer and a lot of space for people before and after vaccination. You need to establish schedule protocols and mechanisms based on each week’s allotted doses sent to each clinic. We needed EMTs on site, nursing students, pharmacists and a lot of volunteers. So many people had to be trained for all of kinds of things. I mean, how long do you have? I could go on all night.”

Houston led the creation of a guidebook of best practices and led daily calls with UNC campuses to establish clinics and troubleshoot issues. Whenever UNC Health learned of an issue at the Friday Center, Houston updated the system’s operational plan and each clinic immediately.

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“People told us they got the vaccine because our universities were the ones offering it,” Houston said. “These universities have built trust in communities over many years.”

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“For example, UNC Health’s Dr. David Weber told us to be sure our backup servers had capacity to handle website registration,” Houston said. Knowing that helped campuses avoid any scheduling and registration issues. “UNC Health’s help was crucial to our success.”

N.C. A&T, the largest of the 107 historically Black colleges and universities in the U.S., was the first clinic outside of Chapel Hill to come online, the week of Feb. 11. It had vaccinated 5,465 people as of April 6, including Chancellor Harold Martin and his wife, Davida, who both spoke publicly about their decision to encourage others to be vaccinated. Western Carolina reached out to migrant workers. UNC-Pembroke runs a mobile clinic to meet the needs of Native Americans and older citizens.

“People told us they got the vaccine because our universities were the ones offering it,” Houston said. “These universities have built trust in communities over many years.”

By April 1, all 16 higher education institutions in the UNC System had established vaccination clinics. Within five days — and not including the Friday Center clinic run by UNC Health — they had vaccinated 45,748 people. By the governor’s decree, each campus started vaccinating students April 7. Houston’s goal: met.

“It’s been a real heavy lift for these campuses, but all of them have run flawless operations and deserve a great deal of credit,” Houston said.

When thinking of someone to help Hans steer the ship during a turbulent 2020–21 academic year, it’s hard to think of a better person than Houston. And now that the clinics are operating at full capacity, it’s hard to think of anyone better to cajole the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to send as many vaccine doses as each clinic can handle.

If this were the mid-1980s, Houston would be a Carolina student volunteering to help before getting in line for a vaccine.

She grew up whip smart in a low-income family, her father an Army officer who served in Vietnam; it was public school or bust. She majored in criminal justice administration before staying in Chapel Hill for three more years for a law degree. In summer 1989, she joined Prisoner Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm offering free legal services to prison inmates.

“I was driven to public service because a public university gave me an opportunity at a great education. I wanted to immediately give back.”

After two years, she joined the N.C. Attorney General’s office before becoming general counsel and chief of staff for the next decade for state Senate President Pro Tempore Marc Basnight, who held that post from 1993 to 2010.

Along the way, Houston developed expertise in emergency management and strong relationships with other lawyers and leaders, including Hans, who had worked for U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth.

Houston’s most meaningful memory from her work in politics was from 2000, when Basnight’s team was chief architect of a $3.5 billion higher education bond package. Since 2006, with a four-year detour working for UNC System President Erskine Bowles ’67, Houston has been on faculty at UNC’s School of Government.

Last summer, when the system Board of Governors chose Hans as the new system president during a global pandemic, Hans phoned Houston to ask her a couple of emergency management questions. Then he asked whether she’d join his team as chief of staff.

“It’s hard to say no to an old friend who’s willing to assume leadership of the most precious jewel in the crown of our state in the middle of a pandemic,” Houston said. “When someone you’ve known and trusted for so long needs your help and believes you can contribute, you do it.”

This story was written by Mark Derewicz, director of research news at UNC Health/UNC School of Medicine and a freelance writer.

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