To realize its dream of returning to its roots as an economic powerhouse, Detroit needs a massive boost in local talent. Using records from the past 15 years housed at the National Student Clearinghouse, Wayne State University and Macomb Community College have already identified nearly 53,000 “comebackers” for whom the schools have contacts. The institutions are reaching out on social media and working with business and community groups. They’ve placed stories in newspapers and on television, and they plan to post ads on buses. This academic year, Wayne State is offering comebackers perhaps its biggest carrot yet — a debt-forgiveness program called Warrior Way Back. The program waives past-due balances of up to $1,500 for all students seeking to complete their degrees. For full-time students, the first $500 will be waived the first semester, the second $500 the next semester, and so on. The ultimate goal is to eliminate students’ outstanding debt as they make academic progress. “We have been holding transcripts hostage,” says Dawn Medley, Wayne State’s associate vice president for enrollment management, “because it’s the only leverage we have.”

Wayne State has taken its lumps over the years. Less than a decade ago, about one in four students earned a degree within six years. Fewer than one in 10 black students who enrolled at the Detroit campus left with a four-year degree within that time. For black men, the rate was one in 14. Since then, the chances of Wayne State University students leaving the Detroit campus with a degree has almost doubled to 45 percent. And the African-American graduation rate has tripled to 26 percent. And while still trailing Michigan’s other public universities in graduation rate, Wayne State is garnering national attention for its turnaround, raising hopes that the lessons learned on the urban campus can be applied to improve grad rates of minorities, low-income and first-generation college students across the state. “If students suffer, the nation suffers,” said Monica Brockmeyer, WSU’s  senior associate provost for student success.

The Sean Anderson Foundation has donated $10,000 to Wayne State University’s HIGH Program, which stands for Helping Individuals Go Higher. This is the third gift from the foundation, which is a project of Detroit rapper Big Sean, whose real name is Sean Anderson. He’s previously donated $15,000 in 2017 and $25,000 in 2016. 

Wayne State University has received a gift of $1 million from two graduates to establish a new center for global engineering education. The center, which will be named the Nancy Philippart and Thomas McGrail Center for Global Engineering Education, will serve as the epicenter for international programs and global initiatives, according to a news release. 

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today named Wayne State University the winner of its 2018 Project Degree Completion Award during its annual meeting in New Orleans. The annual Project Degree Completion Award identifies and honors institutions using innovative strategies or programs to increase retention and graduation outcomes and decrease achievement gaps. 

Wayne State University (WSU) was named the winner of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)’s 2018 Degree Completion Award which recognizes and awards schools that utilize new approaches to advance degree completion and ensuring educational quality of its students.

Mildred Gaddis sat down with Darrell Dawsey, associate director, community communications for Wayne State University, and Henry L. Robinson, senior director of the Office of Federal TRIO at Wayne State. The three discussed how the Federal TRIO program provides academic assistance and support services to promising youth, adult learners and Wayne State University students who have been historically underrepresented in higher education due to economic deprivation, poor academic preparation and/or first generation college status. While student financial aid programs help students overcome financial barriers to higher education, TRIO helps students overcome class, social and cultural barriers to higher education.

Before his death nearly a year ago, Arbor Drugs founder Eugene Applebaum sat with his family, creating a strategy to ensure his philanthropy would continue. He didn't direct a huge infusion from his estate to the Eugene Applebaum Family Foundation. The Foundation is funding internships for University of Michigan and Wayne State University students at Detroit arts and culture organizations and nonprofits to help build a talent pipeline. And it's bringing its philanthropic relationships to bear to help forge collaborations between organizations like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Wayne State University. The centerpiece of the family's giving is a $1 million commitment to the Applebaum Fellows program, providing opportunities for young people in their communities that inspire leadership, entrepreneurship and independence.

Wayne State University unveiled its new float, “Warrior Strong,” this morning during the 19th Annual Parade Pancake Breakfast. In celebration of the university’s 150th anniversary, the “Warrior Strong” float will make its debut at the 92nd America’s Thanksgiving Parade® with a national broadcast reaching 185 major cities across the country. “For 150 years, Wayne State University has been committed to the city of Detroit and we are proud to celebrate our anniversary with our students, supporters and community with a new float on Thanksgiving morning,” said Dr. M. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State University. “Our float, ‘Warrior Strong’, embodies a motto that Wayne State students and alumni live out each day in classrooms, boardrooms, labs, medical centers and on stage.” 

Wayne State University athletes will be helping to make and distribute lunches in Detroit for those in need. The students are set to participate in the annual #Lunchbag event on Friday. The program began in 2015 in conjunction with Hartford Memorial Baptist Church’s “Feed the Hungry” program. School officials say roughly 5,500 lunches have been distributed by the athletes in past years at the Neighborhood Service Organization, Coalition on Temporary Shelter and Rosa Parks Transit Center.

Several students at Wayne State University hosted a public memorial service Oct. 30 on Gullen Mall for the 11 victims who lost their lives in the attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue Oct. 27. The event, organized by Hillel of Metro Detroit, featured speakers from several Wayne State University religious and cultural groups. “University communities should never be passive in the face of something so horrific as intolerance and hate,” said WSU President M. Roy Wilson. “We have a very diverse community, and we have a responsibility to respond. I am so proud of our students for putting this program together.”

Wayne State University business students will head to Detroit’s iconic Guardian Building on Nov. 2 to vie for $1,750 in scholarship money as they compete in the fourth annual Mike Ilitch School of Business Elevator Pitch Competition. The students have a roughly 80-second ride on an actual elevator to summarize who they are, what they know and what they want to do. Executives from Ally Financial, Enterprise, GM, PlanteMoran and Quicken Loans will evaluate the students on their ability to sell themselves and present a positive, professional first impression. 

As a graduate of the Wayne State University’s College of Engineering, Avinash Rachmale has had an ongoing relationship with the school. He started a business locally, hires Wayne State graduates and sits on the college’s Board of Visitors. That relationship grew Thursday with the university announcing that Rachmale and his wife, Hema, have donated $5 million to the College of Engineering for scholarships and a new testing laboratory.

This fall the university is extending a new debt-forgiveness program, currently offered to enrolled students, to students who dropped out. The program, known as Warrior Way Back, allows students who owe the university less than $1,500 to register for classes and have their debt gradually erased. Students can enroll part-time, and if they are working toward completing their degrees, making satisfactory academic progress and are at least two years removed from when they initially dropped out, Wayne State will forgive $500 for each completed semester. “A lot of these students left because they owed that money,” said Dawn Medley, associate vice president for enrollment management at Wayne State.

The University Research Corridor (URC), a partnership between Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University, has released its 2017 economic impact report. According to the report, the three universities contributed $18.7 billion to the state’s economy last year, up from $16.5 billion in 2015. The organization says that marks a 46 percent increase since 2007, the year it was formed and began benchmarking its impact on the state of Michigan. The URC also reported that it generated 78,845 jobs in 2017. Last year, the report says, the URC spent $2.3 billion on research and development, an increase of 54 percent since 2007. The URC also attracted 94 cents of every federal dollar spent on academic research in Michigan, and accounts for 92 percent of all R&D conducted at higher education institutions in the state.

Wayne State University is celebrating its 150th anniversary and the completion of a $750 million fundraising campaign. The university says festivities planned for Friday include the presentation of a sesquicentennial time capsule and a program hosted by alumna and actress S. Epatha Merkerson. Another alumnus, State Budget Director John Walsh, is expected to speak along with Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Also planned are a campus festival and student block party with music, food and other events. The university says the event provides an opportunity to celebrate what it called “Pivotal Moments: Our Campaign for Wayne State University.” The fundraiser met its goal in July, three months early, with roughly 84,000 donors.

At Wayne State University, Associate Vice President, Alumni Affairs & Advancement Services and Executive Director, Alumni Association Peter Caborn said they prepared to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the university by asking alumni to record themselves talking about their Wayne State experiences or taking a photo of an item they associate with their Wayne State days, such as a class schedule. Alumni could post these remembrances to a microsite that allowed each item to be cataloged as part of a digital time capsule. 

Dawn S. Medley is Associate Vice President of Enrollment at Wayne State University, a key partner toDetroit Drives Degrees, one of our new Graduate! Network affiliate communities. In an opinion article, Remove Barriers to College Degrees, published in early June by The Detroit News, Dawn explains Wayne State’s “Warrior Way Back” initiative. 

When Asma Al-Khshali and her family moved from Qatar to the United States seven years ago, their application for permanent residency was initially declined. The family hired an immigration attorney — Al-Khshali’s first exposure to the legal system in the U.S. “I was very intrigued by it,” she says. “The immigration judge who ultimately granted our stay in the country changed my family’s life, and my faith in the American justice system was cemented right there and then. I wanted to contribute to the system’s legacy ever since.” She headed to Wayne Law School a year ago, following her older brother — an attorney — into the legal world. 

Mildred Gaddis spoke with Mark A. Jackson, director of the Academic Pathways to Excellence program at Wayne State, and Darrell Dawsey, associate director of community communications at Wayne State. The three talked about how APEX Scholars provides effective, supportive services to students to ensure a successful transition from high school to undergraduate studies at Wayne State University.