Norman Burns was born in Versailles, Ohio in 1906. He earned a BS in political science from Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, then obtained an MA in international relations from Yale.

He came to AUB in 1929 where he remained for three years as adjunct professor of economics. While in Lebanon he made a thorough study of the customs duties in Syria which was published under the title of 'Tariff of Syria, 1919-1932'. Among the several articles and book he wrote was an
article entitled 'The Role in the Middle East for the American University of Beirut.'

Before coming to AUB as president, Burns held a number of important posts in international relations: he was part time lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University; he joined the State Department, where he later became director of the Foreign Service Institute in Washington. After two years he left to become the chief economic advisor to UNRWA. He remained in that post until he was appointed director for Near East and South Asia Operations of the International Cooperation Agency; from there he went on to the position of head of U.S. Operations Mission in Jordan.

He was married in 1935 to Constance Albrech, herself a graduate (MA) in Romance Languages, from Bryn Mawr College in Massachusetts; She also studied French in Paris at the Sorbonne.