Susan Haughton Ehringhaus

Susan Haughton Ehringhaus, longtime resident of Chapel Hill, NC passed away peacefully on July 12, 2026. A Memorial Service will be held at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, July 29, 2026 at The Chapel Of The Cross, 304 E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Interment will be a private ceremony in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Susan was the daughter of J. C. Blucher Ehringhaus, Jr and his wife, Margaret Peoples Ehringhaus. She was the granddaughter of J. C. Blucher Ehringhaus who served as the 58th Governor of North Carolina from 1933-1937 and was a devoted champion of public education.

She was preceded in death in 2018 by her beloved husband, Dr. Stuart O. Bondurant, longtime Dean and later Dean Emeritus of The University Of North Carolina School Of Medicine. They first shared a home that they renovated near campus, then later designed a residence together at The Cedars of Chapel Hill, where they built deep friendships and immersed themselves in community life. Susan served on the Board of the Meadowmont Community Association, one of many ways she remained engaged with the place she called home.

Susan was educated in the Raleigh Public Schools, and graduated from St. Mary’s Junior College, in Raleigh in 1964. She received her B.A. from The University Of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966 following an outstanding academic career, which included receiving The Order Of The Golden Fleece (UNC’s highest honorary society). She was a 1968 Honors Graduate of The University of North Carolina School of Law where she was Articles Editor of the Law Review.

After a formative stint in the appellate section of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, and private practice in Raleigh, Susan returned to UNC in 1970 to join the UNC Law School faculty. In 1974, she was appointed Assistant to the Chancellor and University Legal Counsel, the first person to hold that position at any UNC campus. She helped author a job description that became a template adopted across the UNC system, and she served as a mentor to many of those appointed to similar roles at other campuses.

She was subsequently named Vice Chancellor and General Counsel, a position she held through 2002, serving six Chancellors with distinction. Throughout her tenure she also taught courses at the UNC School of Law and the UNC School of Medicine, with a focus on education law, medical ethics, leadership, and related subjects.

In 2003, Susan was named Senior Director and Regulatory Counsel and Associate General Counsel at the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C. Her work focused on regulatory, bioethical, and business issues in academic medicine and on interactions with industry. While in Washington, she also served as Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Following her work at Georgetown, in 2009, Susan was recruited as a Senior Advisor in the Office for Interaction with Industry for Partners Healthcare (now Mass General Brigham), a system of Harvard-affiliated hospitals in Boston, Massachusetts. There, she continued her focus on research integrity, technology transfer, conflicts of interest, and governance across a complex academic medical enterprise.

Over the course of her distinguished career, Susan was a prominent voice in the American Health Lawyers Association and the National Association of College and University Attorneys. She was the author of numerous institutional policies on academic medical center governance and ethics, an invited speaker and lecturer at forums across the country and abroad, and a trusted consultant to many organizations navigating the complex terrain of academic medicine and higher education. Her honors include The Distinguished Service Award from the UNC-CH Alumni Association and The C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award, the highest service honor conferred by UNC.

Beyond her professional life, Susan brought the same depth and enthusiasm to everything she loved. She and Stuart spent a cherished interlude in New York City in the mid-1990s, when Stuart served on faculty at The New York Academy of Medicine and it was a city Susan adored and returned to whenever she could. She was a devoted opera lover, with a special fondness for La Traviata. She delighted in high fashion and classic costume jewelry, and also enjoyed the rituals of tending her rose garden, which she cultivated with quiet pride. Atlantic Beach offered Susan restoration and joy, and she could often be found in her swimsuit by the pool with a McDonald's Diet Coke reading the New Yorker.

Throughout her life, Susan remained steadfastly committed to staying active through daily visits to her favorite elliptical at Meadowmont’s UNC Wellness Center. That exercise was often balanced with dinners at Brixx Pizza, where she was a regular, and where she loved to connect with friends. She was incredibly generous and gave experiences as gifts, particularly to younger generations of family and friends, so that they might discover the arts, culture, travel, and the rewards of giving back to their own communities. She asked in return for their help tutoring her in topics like Spotify music playlists and (in recent years), AI.

Susan is survived by her brother, J. C. Blucher Ehringhaus, III (Nancy); two nieces, Katherine E. Edelshain (Benjamin) and Julia E. Noel (Thomas), all of Charlotte, NC. Also surviving are Stuart F. Bondurant (Lisa) of Atlanta, GA; Margaret Lynn Bondurant (Gary Derr) of Danby VT; and Nancy V. Bondurant (Mario Belloni) of Davidson, NC. In addition, William M. Bondurant (Richard) of San Francisco, CA, Elizabeth B. Stoltze (Coleman) of Cary, NC, Benjamin S. Bondurant (Catherine) of Atlanta, GA, and James M. Bondurant (Mikaela) of Rochester, MN. She is also survived by a collection of twelve great- grandchildren, grandnieces, and grandnephews.

The family is grateful to several healthcare providers, including The DuBose Center of The Cedars of Chapel Hill, UNC Hospitals, and especially to Dr. James E. Kurz of UNC Health, for his tremendous commitment to the highest standard of care for Susan. Memorial Gifts may be made to The Chapel Of The Cross (304 E. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC 27514) or The Bondurant Ehringhaus Endowment of The UNC Health Foundation, Inc. (123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516).

Susan was a remarkable woman who moved through the world with elegance, grace, and a quiet but firm confidence. She was steadfast in her belief that the purpose of her work was to serve, whether that be an institution, community, or the broader mission of education and medicine in our world.

In a 1988 interview with the UNC Alumni Magazine, she offered a window into her philosophy: "I think it's hard for a university lawyer to measure success...your career consists of many small interactions that are meant to help people. I feel good at the end of the day—I have a sense that the cumulative effect of many small actions have helped the University to move forward a little."

When she received the Distinguished Service Award from the UNC Alumni Association in 1999, she returned to a theme instilled by her parents and grandparents: "Hard work is its own reward." In her case, hard work nurtured her soul, fueled her desire to “move things forward a little” and to focus on the things that mattered most.

Susan was a friend and mentor to students, colleagues, co-workers, and acquaintances too numerous to count and she will be deeply missed with a legacy long remembered.