By The Gothic Guardian staff

The executive board of The Gothic Guardian met on April 22 to elect Trent Serwetz the publication’s new Editor-in-Chief. The 2009-2010 editor, Lingfeng Li, stepped down in accordance with the Guardian‘s new one-year term limit for editors-in-chief.

Serwetz served as the magazine’s Production Editor this year and was the editor of his high school newspaper. He has also worked at Duke’s Multimedia Project Studio as a media consultant specializing in InDesign and Photoshop for the past three years.

During his tenure as editor, Serwetz hopes to expand the magazine’s presence on and off campus. “By increasing our number of print issues and committing to timeliness in both online and print media, we’re going to get noticed,” he said.

The executive board decided to implement a one-year term limit policy for editors-in-chief in an effort to improve leadership transitions and better spread institutional knowledge among staff members. The new policy will also allow dedicated staff members to rise to leadership positions more quickly.

The new, formal executive board led by Serwetz consists of the executive editor, production editor, and publicity director. The managing editor position, which has existed since the publication’s inception, was replaced with the publicity director position as the magazine seeks to improve its campus presence next year.

“I really think through good reporting and better publicity, better advertising, we can build on the magazine’s growing reputation,” Serwetz said.