Sophomore Elena Quinones will be the next editor-in-chief of Student Life, assuming her role April 1 when current editor-in-chief senior Sam Seekings’ term ends.

Grace Bruton | Student Life

Sophomore Elena Quinones stands in front of the Student Life staff and board at the Student Life Gala Saturday night.

Her appointment was announced Saturday at the annual banquet hosted by Washington University Student Media Inc., whose board of directors, comprised primarily of alumni, oversees the newspaper.

Quinones, originally from Louisville, KY, is majoring in Latin American Studies with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She first joined Student Life as a part of the newspaper’s pre-orientation program, Freshmen Press.

“I absolutely love Student Life as an organization. [Being named editor-in-chief] means a lot to me [and] I feel like I can make effective change on campus in the role,” Quinones said. “I think [with] dedicated, efficient reporting and diversity and inclusion initiatives, we can report in a way that makes our campus more aware and educated. ”

After the orientation program, Quinones continued to report and write for a majority of the paper’s sections during the fall semester of her freshman year. By the spring semester of that year, she served as a co-junior news editor for the News section where she edited all content printed in the section in addition to regularly producing her own news content.

“I think [Quinones] is talented, hard working and all of the rest of that, but I also think she cares really deeply about making this campus a better place,” Seekings said. “She wants to bring about change in this community she cares about through journalism and through Student Life [and] I have absolute confidence in her that she’s going to be able to do that.”

Currently, Quinones serves as the co-senior editor for Cadenza, the arts and entertainment section of the publication, alongside junior Josh Zucker. She has held this position since April 2018.

“She’s very dedicated. She cares about getting content that is both relevant to Wash. U. students and interesting to get in general,” Zucker said. “It’s been cool to see her explore the paper and get used to everything and I think all the experience she’s gotten is going to serve her well next year.”

In addition to her section-specific roles, Quinones served as the social media editor in spring 2018 and regularly contributes to designing the paper. Former editor-in-chief Ella Chochrek said she’s especially excited to see what Quinones does to increase the publication’s digital presence and what special projects she elects to pursue.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing what she and the staff do with digital because that’s something that StudLife has been working towards for several years, and we have so many more opportunities still to pursue new things in that realm,” Chochrek said. “I’m also really excited to see what kind of special projects are pursued, particularly some past ones like WU: in Focus or Who Won?, because I know Elena has some really great ideas about that.”

When thinking about goals for her term, Quinones says that she plans to focus on increasing diversity of staff and coverage. She also hopes to pursue more in-depth reporting projects.

“The paper has become a lot more diverse as far as our staff goes, which I think is really important and really good,” Quinones said. “I also feel like we’ve improved on the content side…[it] has just become a lot more relevant.”