From the global pandemic to the divisive 2020 election, kids and teens are absorbing a lot of the same stress 2020 has brought adults; and what's worse, is that at a time when play dates or sleepovers are discouraged for public health reasons, kids might be needing that social outlet the most. Most organized youth sports are on hold right now, and many school districts in Michigan have moved fully remote due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. “During adolescence, this is a time when kids are really primed to want to explore their environment, to seek out new experiences. And being stuck at home with your parents isn’t really the best way to fulfill those developmental needs," said Hannah Schacter, an assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State. In the onset of the pandemic -- kids, especially teens, missed out on some key social milestones like prom, sporting events, and graduation. “And now suddenly you have moments of hope, of maybe it’s getting better and maybe we’re heading back there and then suddenly that’s shifting," Schacter said. Until Dec. 8, high school students statewide are learning remotely due to the an epidemic health order aimed at the slowing the spread of the virus. It's a move Schacter said could pose a greater problem for students who rely on in-school academic or social support. “It requires a greater sort of pro-activeness to seek out those services which is not always entirely possible in a virtual environment."

Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy, penned an article for The Conversation about epistemic exhaustion.“An endless flow of information is coming at us constantly: It might be an article a friend shared on Facebook with a sensational headline or wrong information about the spread of the coronavirus. It could even be a call from a relative wanting to talk about a political issue. All this information may leave many of us feeling as though we have no energy to engage. As a philosopher who studies knowledge-sharing practices, I call this experience “epistemic exhaustion.” The term “epistemic” comes from the Greek word episteme, often translated as “knowledge.” So epistemic exhaustion is more of a knowledge-related exhaustion. It is not knowledge itself that tires out many of us. Rather, it is the process of trying to gain or share knowledge under challenging circumstances.”

Wayne State University students are wrapping up part two of their archaeological dig in Hamtramck. Two years ago, the students did the first phase of their project: digging into the history of the site of the old Village Hall on Jos. Campau, between Grayling and Alice streets. The second dig began in August, and wrapped up this week. Village Hall was built in 1914, and also housed the village fire department and police station. Working under the direction of WSU anthropology professor Krysta Ryzewski, the students have collected an assortment of items from the site of Village Hall, as well as about 17 other buildings that occupied the area over the years. The goal of the class, Ryzewski said, is to interpret the items to learn about the lives of the people, mainly immigrants, who lived and worked there for more than a century. “We’re looking to uncover the unwritten history that tells us about the rise of Hamtramck in the early 20th century,” Ryzewski said. This second dig was held because the previous one was so successful. In fact, aside from revealing information about the past, the experience led Wayne State University to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Hamtramck Historical Museum, to cooperate on future projects. The official signing saw Stephanie Hartwell, dean of the WSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Museum Executive Director Greg Kowalski each signing the document. This agreement provides that the museum will offer internships to students, invite WSU researchers to participate in a variety of projects in conjunction with the museum, host guest lecturers from WSU, participate in joint grant writing opportunities, and publicize the joint ventures. In return, WSU will recruit students to do internships at the museum, provide faculty consultation to assist with projects, help identify grant sources, invite museum staff to lecture at the university, and share digital media and library resources with the museum.  

Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy, wrote a piece for The Conversation on religious freedom with the rule of law balance. “Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s first week as an active Supreme Court justice began on Nov. 2 and almost immediately included a case that could test her credentials as a religious conservative. On the surface, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which was argued in front of the court on Nov. 4, concerns whether the state can require organizations it partners with to accept same-sex couples as foster parents. But underneath are questions about how Barrett and her fellow justices will deal with a decades-old Supreme Court ruling that could have wider implications for religious liberty cases. The case in front of the justices concerns how Philadelphia partners with private organizations – both religious and secular – to find homes for children in foster care. In 2018, Philadelphia learned that two organizations, Catholic Social Services and Bethany Christian Services, had religiously motivated policies against placing children with same-sex couples in violation of Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance.”

“When you look at the numbers beyond COVID, for African Americans, they have the worst health conditions – diabetes, heart conditions, obesity, high blood pressure – because of diet and poverty, the stressors for living in poverty,” said Khari Brown, associate professor of sociology at Wayne State University with a specialization in race, religion and politics. “Living and eating healthy, exercising, is a function of class and education, not just of the individual’s class but of your social class and being in a network.” Brown explained that we are all in numerous “networks” – friendship networks, networks of our children’s friends, a neighborhood network of where we live, professional networks, religious network, and others. “If you’re in a network with a knowledgeable group, you become more knowledgeable. It’s one of the reasons African Americans have some of the worst health and worst health outcomes. They live in poor communities with poor access to health. You have poor individuals that are living in poor neighborhoods – they’re in poor friendship networks – eating healthy and exercising is a function of class,” Brown said. “It’s one more variable. It’s race and class and place. It’s where you are. If you see people running, biking, kayaking – it looks fun. You may want to try it. It’s exposure. Place matters.”  

It’s Election Day 2020 and after a long and contentious campaign, tensions are running high. It feels like the country is the most divided it has been since the Civil War. Some are worried that the current climate of political instability could jeopardize the country’s democratic process. Though this election cycle is certainly unprecedented, it isn’t the first contentious election in America’s history. What can we learn from previous fraught elections and how the country endured after them? Marc Kruman, founding director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship and professor of history, says that the current election feels very different and is different from those in recent history. “This is the most contentious presidential election of my lifetime,” says Kruman. He adds that the erosion of trust evidenced throughout this election cycle makes it a uniquely anxious event. “I think that if we are going to compare it, it would probably be to the election of 1876,” says Kruman, adding the caveat that the 1876 election was far tenser than the lead up to 2020. The current climate of division, though anxiety-inducing, may actually be necessary according to Kruman. “Contentiousness actually has led to greater voter participation and greater enthusiasm and that speaks to the health of our democracy,” says Kruman.

Saeed Khan, the director of global studies at Wayne State University, said as the world anticipates results, a tremendous number of votes were cast as absentee or mail-in ballots, which in many places might take days to count, and that includes Michigan. "There's also going to be a sense of uncertainty when it comes to what's going to be the rhetoric," he said. He pointed out earlier in the evening that it was expected President Trump might declare victory based on the trajectory of the race so far. "However, as this thing will go longer and longer and the votes start coming in, then we're going to find the race tightening up and perhaps with Democrats doing far better," Khan said. "If that then turns into an issue, where Biden can then claim victory, especially in the Electoral College, we're going to find not just a rhetorical battle occurring, but we're also going to find several legal challenges because President Trump has never been predisposed to be someone who will concede a defeat, and particularly one where he feels as though it's on a technical matter."

The partisan divide has grown wider over the past four years and the threat of political unrest continues to grow. A rise in anger and awareness over the police killings of Black men combined with an upsurge in the participation of militia groups have already led to confrontations and violence. Frustration, injustice, and politics make for unstable chemistry. “The best-case scenario is to see civil disorder as part of the democratic process and that there are boundaries and that we do not want to stop people from engaging in civil disobedience and in civil dissent. The only time we should arrest people is if they threaten the security of the state. And Black Lives Matters groups are not threatening the security of the state – they’re asking for reform,” says Ron Brown, an associate professor of political science at Wayne State University. Protests by racial justice groups have drawn counter-protests from right-wing militia and white nationalist groups and that can present a problem for authorities. “You will probably see the police put both groups in jail. However, I think that that the vast majority of those must be again those on the right because they are the ones who are disruptive. They are the ones that are largely a threat to democratic norms,” Brown says.

Wayne State University researchers and students are digging in Hamtramck to learn more about how people lived more than a century ago right here in Michigan. Krysta Ryzewski, professor of anthropology, talks with WDIV reporter Paul Gross about their findings.

Yoga is deeply linked to traditional Eastern medicine and a view of the body as a system of energy channels and nexuses—a perspective that does not easily align with Western medicine. But since the start of this century, scientific research on yoga has exploded. Many recent studies assess yoga as a “complementary therapy” to be used alongside other treatments for problems such as back pain, depression, anxiety and arthritis. Such research often has found that the practice can help. Still, yoga studies tend to be of uneven quality, often relying on self-reported survey data. Research shows that three patterns emerged with some consistency: yoga practice could be linked to increased gray matter volume in the hippocampus, a key structure for memory; increased volume in certain regions of the prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher-order cognition; and greater connectivity across the default mode network. This network plays a role in processing memories and emotions and “what we call self-referential processing—processing information about yourself,” explains Jessica Damoiseaux, a cognitive neuroscientist at Wayne State University and co-author of the review paper. The significance of having more gray matter volume in these regions is not entirely clear, she says, but “it suggests there may be more connections between neurons, which can indicate better functioning.”

According to Wayne State University history professor Marsha Richmond, the key to moving forward from the COVID-19 pandemic may just lie in the past. Since April 2020, Richmond has been recruiting faculty and students from across the university to help us all learn from epidemics and pandemics throughout history. Named the Pandemic Perspectives project, it serves as a virtual classroom that views both the current crisis and past pandemics through a historical and sociological lens. Comprised of video lectures, virtual presentations, and podcasts, the project illustrates how the world dealt with pestilence and communicable illnesses in the past. With nearly a dozen modules, the project covers everything from smallpox and the Bubonic Plague to HIV/AIDS. “The aim is to be able to learn from the course of past pandemics and epidemics in human history,” says Richmond. “This may shed light on and provide new insights — or a broader perspective — about our current experience.”

According to Jennifer M. Gómez, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute for Child & Family Development at Wayne State University, having good mental health does not mean you are happy all of the time. She pointed out that a wide range of emotions from sadness to anger to grief are “integral parts to being alive.” Listing many triggers in our environment including Covid-19 and police violence, Gómez noted that reacting happily after experiencing any of those things directly or indirectly would be abnormal. She added, “If you’re struggling, there’s nothing inherently wrong with you.”

Spotlight on the News: Inside Michigan's African American Vote series celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month and examined the impact and influence of the largest minority group in America. How are leaders of Michigan's Hispanic and Latino/a community using their power and voice to increase the cultural diversity of the U.S.? Among the guests was Jorge Chinea, History professor  and Director, Center for Latino/a & Latin American Studies.

In this installment, Wayne State University assistant professor of African American Studies Valerie Sweeney Prince, author of “Burnin’ Down the House: Home in African American Literature,” discusses the role of African American literature from Ralph Ellison’s time to the present, and questions whether Black literature exists in a pure form considering the white lens of the publishing industry. On the recent killings in Kenosha, Wis., Prince says the white lens impacts so many aspects of Black life, not just in literature. “When someone is tweeting ‘law and order,’ that is very clearly a frame of reference that allows a 17-year-old white kid with an assault weapon to not be seen as a murderer,” she says. When it comes to Black literature, Prince says the question is about who ultimately gets to determine what audiences read and internalize about Black life in America. “Blackness exists because it’s a culture. We have music, we have food, we have dance, we have all these things, a way of speaking, a way of just being and seeing and living in the world. But what does not exist are the mechanisms by which these things get codified and communicated outside our culture.”

The women who made up the suffrage movement a century ago were dismissed, degraded, even jailed. Yet they persisted. But even after women secured the right to vote (for most women – many women of color, especially Black women, notably remained disenfranchised even after ratification of the 19th Amendment), the fight to be elected to office was long and fraught. After helping secure the right for women to vote in her home state of Montana in 1914, social worker, pacifist and suffragette Jeannette Rankin set a new goal. Rankin became the first woman elected to Congress in 1916, four years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment and as the U.S. was debating whether to enter World War I. "She was an ardent suffragist,” said Liette Gidlow, an associate professor of history at Wayne State University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. “And it's not necessarily remembered this way these days, but Americans' feelings about being involved in the first World War were very mixed."

Going off to college is, for many young adults, their first real plunge into freedom and adulthood. It’s where they’re encouraged to take risks and find new connections in dining halls and laundry rooms. But those collegiate rites of passage aren’t possible if they’re largely confined to an extra-long twin bed in a stuffy dorm room, peering out at the world through barred windows. The fall 2020 semester looks a lot like that for some undergraduates who’ve returned to campus during the pandemic. And as anticipated, some of those undergrads have already started to rebel. CNN spoke with experts about the drivers behind these risky decisions, including Hannah Schacter, assistant professor and developmental psychologist at Wayne State University. Teens are also particularly sensitive to the potential rewards of risky decisions at this stage in their life. It’s not that they don’t understand the negative consequences, but they struggle to regulate those impulses that lead them to take risks because the potential reward is too great, said Schacter, who leads a lab at Wayne State University on adolescent relationships. “It’s this combination of being restricted from social contact for a while at an age where spending time with peers is so essential to development, to making teenagers feel good, and so, there’s some sort of calculation going on where the perceived benefit — ‘I get to spend time with friends’ — seems to be outweighing the potential costs,” Schacter said. When you plop students back on campus after a spring and summer spent cooped up in their childhood bedrooms, many of them will take those opportunities to connect with their friends and strangers. Their fear of the virus may be overtaken by their eagerness to connect, she said. “No one’s going back to college because they want to sit in their dorm all weekend by themselves,” Schacter said. “Peers are so essential that it’s no coincidence that we’re seeing these behaviors more and that they’re particularly peer-oriented,” Schacter said.

The Detroit Institute of Arts had just avoided selling off parts of its collection to help pay the debts of the city that owned it. It had a new, independent ownership structure, new revenue streams and a new standing as a museum that tried to replace the foreboding demeanor of many art institutions with a more welcoming, visitor-centered experience. And it had a new director, Salvador Salort-Pons, who had come from its ranks, a charismatic curator and Spanish-born scholar of Velázquez, who seemed to understand its struggles and its future and who took office to a rousing ovation at a board meeting in 2015. But five years later, at a time when museum leaders across the country are being challenged on whether their institutions are systemically racist, few are confronting as many thorny issues as Salort-Pons. “There has been discontent,” said Jeffrey Abt, professor emeritus at Wayne State University who has written about the history of the institute. “I can see how it is potentially perilous. On one side are the unhappy staff members who are objecting to Salvador’s administration,” he added. “On the other side are the friends outside the museum he has made over the years who think that, here, they have someone who is championing their cause.” Bill Harris, a writer and emeritus professor of English at Wayne State University, said he visited the institute as a young boy even though he didn’t feel welcome. “It has evolved from that, but it’s still a white institution,” he said. Melba Joyce Boyd, a professor in American Studies at Wayne State University, said that she respects much of what Mr. Salort-Pons has done but because of its location and audience, she said the institute has special responsibilities. “The D.I.A. should be the number one place for African-Americans in the whole country,” she said. “Detroit should be taking a lead on a lot of these issues.”

COVID-19 has left many feeling isolated and alone. However, disasters like this impact whole communities, which means that effective solutions to disaster-related stress can be found in community connections and community-based partnerships. Erika London Bocknek, PhD is a licensed family therapist and associate professor of Educational Psychology at Wayne State University. She directs the Family Resilience Laboratory at Wayne State, is associate editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal, and serves on the editorial boards of the journals Infancy and Adversity and Resilience Science. Bocknek participated in a Q&A about the issues of isolation and loneliness amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the passage of the 19th Amendment, some Black women tried to register to vote and were successful and “those successes, even though few in number, inspired fresh efforts to suppress Black voters,” according to Liette Gidlow, associate professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit, who is working on a new book, “The 19th Amendment and the Politics of Race, 1920 —1970.” When "disfranchised Black women asked the League of Women Voters and the National Woman's Party (NWP) to help, the main organizations of former suffragists turned them down," Gidlow wrote in an article. "NWP head Alice Paul insisted in 1921 that Black women's disfranchisement was a ‘race issue,’ not a ‘woman's issue,’ and thus no business of the NWP. The failure of white suffragists at that moment to address the disfranchisement of southern Black women reverberated for decades to come and undercut the efforts of women of both races to make progress on issues of shared concern. Black women continued to develop political power in the face of disenfranchisement, racism and sexism. Mary McCleod Bethune founded a school for Black children in Daytona, Florida, in 1904 and became one of the most important Black educators, women’s rights leaders and government officials. In 1922, she organized hundreds of women to vote in a mayoral election in Daytona. The night before that election, the Ku Klux Klan marched through the school grounds and she “stood them down," Gidlow said.

In recent months, Obama has waded back into the fray more so than before. He openly criticized the administration's response to coronavirus publicly. In remarks to donors that leaked to the NYT, Obama said Trump played on "nativist, racist, sexist" fears. Moreover, comments Obama made in his eulogy to John Lewis, the former civil rights activist and congressman, were also indirectly critical of Trump, taking aim at the use of federal agents against protesters and attempts to undermine mail-in voting. "As he delivered the eulogy, Obama felt the moral urgency of the moment: To honor Lewis, Obama had to speak up in that moment. And he did," Liette Gidlow, an associate professor of history at Wayne State University who edited the book Obama, Clinton, Palin: Making History in Election 2008, told Newsweek. Suggesting Obama had been "extremely restrained" about Trump previously, she said the "urgency of the moment" perhaps pushed the former president to be more expansive. "The republic is in trouble because a number of powerful officials, up to and including Trump himself, have taken actions that show their willingness to undermine basic democratic norms," Gidlow said.