E. Maxine Bruhns didn't leave her home state of West Virginia until she went off to college in Ohio.

But after that, she traveled more in 15 years than many people do in a lifetime, visiting and living in such areas as Austria, Lebanon, Jordan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Germany, Greece and West Africa.

Her knowledge of the world helped her get the job she has held for the past 38 years -- director of the University of Pittsburgh Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs. Last month, she was honored for the work she has done in that position with a YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh 2004 Tribute to Women award.

The award program, begun in 1983, recognizes women in southwestern Pennsylvania whose innovation, vision and advocacy has helped to shape their communities.

The nationality rooms are one of Pittsburgh's best-known attractions. Housed in the university's Cathedral of Learning, each rooms is decorated to reflect the heritage and traditions of a specific culture. Visits to the rooms are routine for local schoolchildren as well as for out-of-towners visiting the city.

When Bruhns started in the position, the cathedral had 19 nationality rooms. Now, it has 26. During her tenure, the African Heritage, Armenian, Austrian, Indian, Israel, Heritage, Japanese and Ukrainian rooms were dedicated.

On the drawing board are Danish, Finnish, Latin American, Philippine, Swiss, Turkish and Welsh rooms.

"She is responsible for taking these ideas and inspiration and making them a reality and for helping to perpetuate the different cultures that make up our community," said Jillian Georges, manager of membership and events for the YWCA.

"She has made this a landmark in this city," said Gertrude Kaplan, of Oakland, who nominated Bruhns for the award. "... And she continues to work with every ethnic and racial community to accomplish this."

Bruhns, who lives in Fox Chapel, was born in Grafton, W.Va. Three days after graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology and philosophy from Ohio State University, she married Fred C. Bruhns, a refugee specialist who worked for several organizations, including the United Nations, and began traveling with him."My parents expected me to marry Bill Hood who lived next door and became an insurance agent," Bruhns recalled. "My mother was horrified."

During her travels with her husband, she worked with CARE, taught English in binational centers and studied several languages and cultures. She also earned a master of arts degree in education at the American University of Beirut.

In 1965, she moved to Pittsburgh and heard about the nationality room position by word of mouth.

"We thought we would be here two years and move on, and then I walked into this job," she said.

Ruth Crawford Mitchell founded the nationality room program in 1926 under the direction of Pitt Chancellor John Bowman as a way to involve the city's ethnic groups in the construction of the cathedral.

The program, however, was languishing by the time Bruhns came on board.

"It just went downhill," she said. "The rooms weren't maintained. I was hired two half-days a week, and I sat in a closet when I first started."

But the university had pledged to maintain the rooms, and Bruhns saw to it that the pledge was upheld by starting inspections every six months.

In addition, she devoted herself to strengthening and expanding the summer study abroad scholarship program. Since 1966, the program has sent 840 students abroad.

"As it grew and the committees became more active and began raising scholarship money, the university took it more seriously," she said.

She works closely with the committees that develop, design and fund each room concept.

A successful nationality room requires "an authentic concept rendered in appropriate materials where you walk in and know where you are," Bruhns said.

She makes it sound easy, but guiding the committees to such an end requires tact and diplomacy because the parties often don't agree on what constitutes an "authentic concept."

"To know one side of a coin from another, it helps to have lived all over," she said.

Feisty at 80, Bruhns has no plans to retire.

"Not having had any children, I think this is my legacy," she said. "These rooms will live on after me."