The Asian Pacific Student Coalition, an umbrella organization of 19 smaller Asian Pacific American groups, elected their new governing officers Wednesday.
The APSC executive board will be led by College sophomore Nina Wong, who will replace outgoing APSC chairwoman and College senior Rohini Khanna.
"I'm really excited," Khanna said, referring to next year's group. "They all bring really different experiences."
Before serving as vice chairwoman of external affairs last year, Wong, a Philadelphia native, had also been involved in the local Asian-Pacific American community before arriving at Penn.
"In the last year, we did a lot in creating dialogue among the coalition as a whole," Wong said. "I wanted to continue that dialogue."
The APSC executive board also consists of seven vice chairs. Of next year's eight governing officers, Wong is the only one who has served previously served on the board.
"She had really strong ideas and is really committed to strengthening the internal ... cohesion of the community," Khanna said of Wong.
However, both Wong and Khanna believe this year's turnover is not unusual and stressed the opportunities it will provide as well.
"A number of people on our board have been heavily involved on campus," Wong said. "I think it will be advantageous for the organization. Having so many new people brings energy and new ideas."
Wong pointed to the success Khanna had over the last year as the basis as a building block for her leadership.
"We want to continue the dialogue about how to better utilize this network we have and make a bigger impact on the community," Wong said.
One the biggest accomplishments of the last year was APSC's successful bid for Penn to host the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference, the largest annual gathering of Asian-American student groups on the East Coast. The conference will be held on Penn's campus Feb. 18-20.
The APSC executive board will also consists of Vice Chair Wesley Nakamura, Vice Chair for Political Affairs Nazia Siddiqi, Vice Chair for Cultural Programming Navin Kumar, Vice Chair for University Relations Neha Sahni, Vice Chair of External Affairs Akriti Raju, Vice Chair of Development Cara Hoy and Vice Chair for Communications Jun Li.
