New LC chair to promote faculty, student diversity

Last Thursday, College sophomore Diana Cabrera was elected the new chair of the Latino Coalition — the umbrella organization for Latino groups on campus. She was previously the LC’s chair of admissions and recruitment. The DP recently sat down with her to discuss her goals for the future of LC.

The Daily Pennsylvanian: How did you first become involved with the LC and why did you decide to run for the position of LC chair?

Diana Cabrera: It was through going to GBMs that I got to see how things worked. I was there for GBM nominations one day and I got nominated for admissions chair. I talked to friends and leaders of the community, and I felt passionate about admissions, so I ran for it.

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When I was thinking about running for chair, I thought, “What’s my next step?” I really thought that I could do a lot with chair because I had already worked [to increase] communication between the admissions office and the Latino community and I felt that as chair, I could do the same but with a wider administration.

DP: What are some short- and long-term goals that you have for the upcoming year?

DC: One of our overarching initiatives is to increase communication with administration. This not only involves strengthening communication … with admissions, but also with other offices to increase our numbers with Latina and Latino faculty. As chair, I want to work towards increasing communication because that is how we can get the [community] to push towards higher numbers [of Latino and Latina faculty] in different fields.

Another [goal] is to increase and strengthen the unity of our community. That not only involves trying to increase collaboration with alumni and graduate students, but also to … highlight the intersectionalities in our community, like collaborating with the LBGTQ community. We’re a very diverse community so I think we should do more work around that.

[Those] are two overarching initiatives [that] can manifest themselves in different ways to really push for the other things that we want, like higher numbers in general and higher admission and faculty rates.

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DP: How do you plan on achieving these goals?

DC: It’s not only my efforts as chair. When I ran, I ran with the goal of really working alongside the constituents because when we go meet with administration, we’re representing and advocating for the different faces of our community. So yes, I have these initiatives but they’re overarching initiatives … I want to work with constituents so that we can hash out how we can cater to the different needs and goals.

DP: How has the Latino Coalition changed your life at Penn?

DC: My work as chair of admissions and recruitment this year … was the most amazing experience of my life. I came in as admissions [chair] with a passion to increase our numbers at Penn, but I also learned so much more about our community, Penn and our relationships. Being on board allows you to have so much insight into all of this.

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DP: Is there anything else you would like to add?

DC: I’m really excited for this year because I think we’re [in] a good place. There are many things that we worked on as a board this past year so that we can help create a path for future generations to work on [with] our initiatives. It’s just very exciting to be a part of this movement because we, as students, have a lot of power and we can really advocate and successfully effect change.

A previous version of this article stated that the board this past year helped create a past for future generations. It is path. Additionally, Cabrera will lead the LC in 2014, not 2013.

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