FEATURE
ALL ACTION Globalizing Athens Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, director of the Multicultural Center, encourages Bobcats to embrace diversity and acknowledge their social impact. BY ALEXIS MCCURDY | PHOTOS BY ANDREW THOMPSON | ILLUSTRATIONS BY ABIGAIL SUMMERS
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n Winsome Chunnu-Brayda’s words, “I’m a bad bitch, and my friends are bad too.” Armed with a firecracker spirit and years of international experience, Chunnu is pouring her immense passion for the things she loves, like cultural competency, into Ohio University’s campus as director of the Multicultural Center. Chunnu, with loose curls tucked neatly on top of her head, gives an exuberant smile and contagious laugh to everyone she comes in contact with. Her office is filled with trinkets from around the world, including a map of the Caribbean and LGBTQ positive stickers, supporting different identity organizations around campus. Multiple people stop by her office and she never shows an ounce of agitation. Effortlessly friendly, Chunnu makes everyone feel at home. Chunnu’s hospitable spirit has humble beginnings in Kingston, Jamaica, where she was born and raised. Delighting in the bustling hospitality industry bursting with promise and opportunity, Chunnu originally thought her career goal was to be a hotel manager. After high school, she worked at a Jamaican resort as an entertainment coordinator. Working her way up the chain, she eventually became the front office manager, overseeing the reservations area as well as the front desk. “Although the hours were grueling, I loved it,” Chunnu says. It was at this time—in the early 2000s—that Chunnu heard from Claudia Titus, a friend who was working at a family resort in St. Mary’s, Jamaica. At the time, both women were students at the Western Hospitality Institute, which had just made a reciprocal arrangement with Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, to set up an exchange program. After some time, students from the
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backdrop | Spring 2020
