HONOLULU ? Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker is one of four new members joining the East-West Center Board of Governors, officials announced Friday.

Secretary of State Colin Powell appointed Kassebaum Baker and pharmaceutical executive John E. Osborn to three-year terms.

The board at its recent meeting in Tokyo elected Edgar W.K. Cheng, chairman of the World-Wide Investment Co., and Tadashi Yamamoto, founder and president of the Japan Center for International Exchange, according to the East-West Center. They also will serve three-year terms.

The East-West Center is an academic institution established by Congress in 1960 to strengthen understanding and relations between the United States and countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Kassebaum Baker, a Republican from Kansas, served three terms in the Senate. She is the wife of U.S. Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker, the former U.S. Senate majority leader and White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan.

Osborn is senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at Cephalon Inc., an international biopharmaceutical company based in West Chester, Pa. He also has served as special assistant to the legal adviser with the State Department during the first Bush administration.

Cheng is chairman of the Council of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a former chairman of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. Yamamoto is a board member of the Japan NPO Center, an organization that supports nonprofit agencies in Japan.

The EWC Board of Governors has 18 members, five appointed by the governor of Hawaii, five by the U.S. secretary of state, and five from Asia and the Pacific who are elected by the full board.