Calhoun County Storytellers: Kalli Onai
By Lucy Hough / For Black Squirrel News
ALBION — Kalli Onai’s experience as a student at Albion College informs the work she does now as the college’s social media and content strategist. As a storyteller for the college, she seeks to tell an authentic story about the college’s assets across six platforms.
“I think Albion College is just a special and unique place in just how committed the individuals are to the students and their success. To mentor, to protect, to inspire, and in a lot of ways to challenge our students to think different and grow vastly,” Onai said. “They make the work that I do so easy. It’s a beautiful story to tell.”
Onai does that by tapping into students’ experience. She seeks to tell the true story of what the college student experience can be and hires students to sculpt the stories behind the college’s First Year Brits account, which is geared toward students’ experience rather than just the college’s brand identity.
One of her favorite stories she helped tell on behalf of the college is when Jayshon Russ learned he was accepted to Morgan State University while in Baltimore to present at the National Council of Black Studies conference. Being in the same city, he was able to explore Morgan State University with Albion staff. A video was produced that shares Russ’ excitement, knowing he could have a future there.
“We were able to help usher him through that process. That sort of protection, that introduction – that’s the core of what Albion is doing,” Onai said.
Onai finds opportunities to share the resources that are available to students who need support. She’s interviewed the people who lead services, such as writing consulting and the Cutler Center for Student Success. She sees her job as an opportunity to ensure students remain the heart of the story.
“It’s important to me because I’ve been the first-year student who is incredibly lost. I’ve been the student that was getting in their own way in terms of being too shy or apprehensive to ask for help. The student who didn’t really feel like their experience was reflected in what they were seeing,” Onai said.
Beyond social media strategy for Albion College, Onai has a podcast called Honestly Onai that has been an outlet for storytelling. She released episodes on all major streaming platforms in 2022 and 2023, and looks forward to getting back to it. She is passionate about self development and has conversations on her podcast about how to be a regulated human. She says that she’s sharing the hard lessons that she learned in order to help younger generations navigate them earlier and dismantle misconceptions they might have about themselves.
“I love the conversational nature of podcasts,” said Onai. “I love connecting with other people and being able to ask them questions and truly get to know them, and modeling how you connect with other people. It not only gives you something to listen to but gives you data for how you can do this thing in your own life.”
The City as an aspect of the student experience
Onai came to Albion College from Cleveland, Ohio. As a Black woman, she understood that it might be a challenging transition to come to a predominantly white institution from a community where more people looked like her. On a college visit before enrolling, she visited a Cracker Barrel in Jackson and her waitress was from Albion and said, “Don’t worry, there’s people who look like you, and we will take care of you.”
That became true for Onai.
Even as a student in Albion, she was welcomed by black women leaders in the community, such as Vivian Davis, Keena Williams, Toccara Gaddis, Mae Ola Dunklin and Juanita Solis Kidder.
“I met all of these amazing Black and brown women who were just friendly faces. I still had my moments of being lost and being young and all, but it felt like doing that here, it just felt like I had a soft landing,” Onai said.
Now, working in the college’s marketing office, Onai sees the way the college takes steps to build a strong relationship with the city and foster relationships between the campus and community.
“It’s important because Albion College would not have a place to be without the town of Albion, but beyond that the people of Albion are special and just as important to our students’ experience as academics,” Onai said.
One example of integrating the community into the storytelling for the college is the coverage she helped coordinate about this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation, which is often a collaborative effort between the college and the Albion NAACP. The 2025 speaker was Dr. Ketwana Schoos, who is from Albion and working in higher education as an administrator and faculty member. The event’s theme was, “We are only as strong as our roots,” which Onai felt was a nod to the importance of the community of Albion.
“Especially with her keynote being so home-driven, it felt like, ‘This is for Albion,’” she said.
Being thoughtful about how the community is represented in this storytelling is important to Onai, who hopes to do so with respect. She said she hopes to be aware of the complexities of the relationship between the college and city so that the college is speaking not from a place of erasure, or as an authority, but simply as an aspect of the community.
“I’m doing everything that I can to integrate into this town because I don’t want to be telling the story of the college or the town from a surveillance place,” she said. “I want to be walking the same streets as everyone else. Appreciating the same Coca-Cola sign that everyone is seeing. And so long as I’m in this community, that’s what is going to be driving my work.”
Photos by Nick J. Buckley / For Black Squirrel News
How we reported this: This story is based on an interview with Kalli Onai.
Corrections and clarifications: A previously published version of this article included a misspelling of Juanita Solis Kidder.
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