Emily Sybrant | Student Life

His appointment was announced at Friday’s annual banquet of Washington University Student Media Inc., whose board of directors oversees Student Life.

Hailing from Brookeville, Md., Kram, 19, is pursuing a psychology major and a writing minor. As editor-in-chief, Kram will be in charge of managing staff, supervising the production of Student Life and making executive decisions.

Kram started with the paper during the Freshman Press pre-orientation program, working as a sports reporter his freshman year and quickly advancing to become a staff reporter and copy editor. He is currently the paper’s copy chief and co-senior sports editor.

He began writing for his high school newspaper during his junior year before becoming the paper’s sports editor as a high school senior.

Kram hopes that his experience with student groups on campus and his involvement with the paper for the past two years will give him the perspective and skills needed to guide the production of Student Life for the next year.

“I see Student Life as sort of the center of all campus news. We should fill a niche as a campus-centric, St. Louis-centric newspaper,” Kram said. “If someone…wants to know what’s going on at Wash. U.’s campus, we should be the top source.”

He is proud of the paper’s role in the community and of what it has become under the leadership of his predecessors. Kram hopes to work closely with the newspaper staff to help develop the skills of new members, improve the overall design of the paper and place more campus-centric content in its pages to improve readership.

“We have a really strong group of staffers who run the gamut from design to writing to editing, and we work really hard on our product,” Kram said. “As a school that doesn’t have a journalism school, especially, we put out a really professional-looking newspaper twice a week, and it’s something that’s hard to do because everything is volunteer work.”

Sahil Patel, Student Life’s current editor-in-chief, is confident that Kram will take the paper to another level.

“I think that he’s going to be great for the paper, and he has a great vision for where this paper needs to go next,” Patel said. “He’s very talented and can do every aspect of production very well. I fully approve of the selection, and I’m confident that he can uphold Student Life’s standards and can keep us moving forward.”

Kram will assume his role as editor-in-chief on April 1, and his term will last through the following spring.