With the midterm election in the rearview, significant shifts among certain groups of Michigan voters appear to show a political realignment in the works. Wayne State University associate professor Jeffrey Grynaviski said. "What's interesting about suburban voters to me in Michigan is that it's really purple," he said. "I think a lot of the changes in the suburban electorate, the voting patterns we're seeing, is attributable to the changes in voters in the suburbs." Grynaviski said there's been a major shift towards the Republican party among non-union residents without college degrees who have successful careers in small business or trades. 

Julie Lesnik, assistant professor of anthropology, wrote an article about the menu of the first Thanksgiving held nearly 400 years ago in Massachusetts. Lesnik points out that there is only one original account of the feast chronicled in a letter written by Edward Winslow on Dec. 11, 1621. In it he described the first Thanksgiving event held by the pilgrims. Winslow describes how the Puritans celebrated by feasting on waterfowl, eating goose and duck rather than turkey. The letter also recounts that the Wampanoag leader Massasoit Ousamequin was present, along with “some ninety men,” and that they gifted deer to Governor William Bradford.

Over the last month, Israeli leaders have made a string of friendly visits, gestures and statements towards Arab leaders in the Gulf, positioning Israel for what appears to be a more overt alliance with Gulf states, from Oman to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Palestinian struggle for statehood, meanwhile, has been "cast to the margins" by the leaders of these same Gulf countries, said Saeed Khan, a senior lecturer in Near East studies at Wayne State University. "It seems as though, among the Saudis, UAE and to a certain degree Oman, they are clearly putting their stock with the official Israeli political line. They're either turning a blind eye or seemingly not at all interested in the Palestinian issue," Khan told Middle East Eye.

U.S. midterm elections are taking place across the country Tuesday. Other than voting for candidates, voters will also be saying 'yay' or 'nay' to three proposals on the ballots. One of them is the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state. "It seems as though many in the state want to follow the example of Canada and be up to speed with that," said Saeed​ Khan, senior lecturer at Wayne State University. However, even if it becomes legal in Michigan, crossing the Canada-U.S. border with marijuana will continue to be a criminal offence under the U.S. federal law.

Flint is a majority African-American city and Democratic stronghold. But to turn out new urban voters in Flint, candidates will have to do more than hearken back to missed opportunities and old scandals, said Ronald Brown, an associate professor of political science at Wayne State University. Candidates must also speak about what they plan to accomplish in terms of improving schools and delivering clean water and safe streets, he said. "If it's just the Flint water issue, that’s not going to move those voters," Brown said. "I think it’s very difficult for any party to get out new voters, especially to get urban voters to vote, when you’ve not been able to solve your problems that have been around for a very long time," he said. 

Thomas Killion, associate professor of anthropology at Wayne State, said he and his students worked for three years on the archaeological dig at the row house, one of Detroit's oldest surviving structures. The dig revealed more than 6,000 fragments and pieces of different household objects that helped paint a picture of how these workers lived in the mid-1800s. Killion said archaeologists don’t expect to find one huge item that reveals everything, but rather a lot of little things that add up to a story. “It was an interesting icon for this fairly mythical Irish neighborhood of Detroit. It had the trifecta there: (the beverages you drink in) early life, middle life and later life," he said. Krysta Ryzewski, associate professor in anthropology at Wayne State, has led the Roosevelt Park digs every other year since 2012. When plans to build the train station were announced in the early 1900s, the city wanted to forcibly remove those who lived around the station, Ryzewski said. 

Halloween marks the 92nd death anniversary of one of the most famous magicians ever. Harry Houdini performed his last show in downtown Detroit before dying at a Detroit hospital in 1926. Days before his show in Detroit, he was performing in Montreal when someone asked to punch him in the stomach. Houdini was known to be a strong man with powerful abs. "Legend has it, he wasn't ready for the punch and they hit him pretty good," Jeff Horner, a senior lecturer at Wayne State said. Horner, who is an urban planner and calls himself an amateur historian, said Houdini wasn't feeling well on the train ride down to Detroit. Houdini gave his last performance at the Garrick Theater, which stood near the corner of Griswold and Michigan Ave. in downtown Detroit.

"When presidents visit, it does appear that it increases voter turnout for their candidates, historically," said Jeffrey Grynaviski, associate professor of political science at Wayne State University. But another question is whether Trump coming would be good for Trump. Grynaviski said his visits so far have been to more red than purple states, and he's using his influence on congressional midterms, too. But a president has the most potential influence with candidates that are on the bubble and close to winning, Grynaviski said. 

A professor and her 15 students have spent the semester digging it out from beneath the gravel. On site every Monday in the city's first comprehensive archaeology project, Krysta Ryzewski's class is using hand tools, imagination and analysis to uncover history, mystery and modern connections. "It's one of the challenges for us," says Ryzewski, to take fragments from the ground, match them with what's known or what's legend or what's seen on old maps, "and learn how people built and lived in the city."

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. 

Dr. Krysta Ryzewski, an associate professor of anthropology at Wayne State, is currently leading a team of Wayne State students in an excavation of the old village hall in Hamtramck to uncover any city secrets it might hold.  The village hall, which was built in 1915 and demolished decades ago, once housed the town police and fire departments, municipal buildings, and the Nut House bar that became popular following Prohibition. 

Stories like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast are so ingrained in popular culture that it can be all too easy to overlook the damaging ideologies that they perpetuate via misogynistic characters, degrading plot lines and racial uniformity. Now, parents are imposing bans on these classic Disney tales, with Keira Knightley and Kristen Bell among those criticizing some of the key storylines, which depict women being rescued by men and kissed while they sleep. Donald Haase, author of Fairytales and Feminism, encourages parents to read these stories skeptically, so as to confront such archaisms rather than endorse them. “They can read or tell classical tales in ways that intentionally question or subvert the stereotypes,” the Wayne State University professor emeritus told The Independent.

Better than either spankings or time-outs is just patiently talking to children after their instances of bad behavior, said a veteran therapist and researcher in child behavior at Wayne State University. Douglas Barnett, a professor of psychology, said many parents "feel passionately" that spanking is effective. So just telling them not to do it is rarely successful, Barnett said. People often say, "If they hadn’t been spanked, they’d be in prison," he said. Yet, numerous academic studies — including some conducted by Barnett at WSU — have linked spanking to "negative outcomes for kids," he said.

Gerrymandering is the political art of "stacking" one party's voters into as few districts as possible, and "cracking" another party's voters across as many districts as possible. Keeping all of one party's voters in few districts is a great way to ensure they don't win many districts, and, therefore, don't get to write the laws. That's "weaponizing" redistricting, says Wayne State University associate political science professor Kevin Deegan-Krause. He travels the state giving presentations on how gerrymandering works, and uses Lego blocks to provide a very useful visual aid.

Jennifer Bonnett, a technology entrepreneur turned startup community builder from Savannah, Georgia, penned a first-person account of being in Detroit this week for the International Business Incubator Association’s e.Builders Forum. During her time in Detroit, they are “meeting at TechTown Detroit which was founded in 2000 by Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health Systems and General Motors. TechTown was originally founded to support tech-based spinoffs from Wayne State University but they realized their services could help strengthen neighborhood small businesses and larger commercial entities. TechTown Detroit is housed in a five-story historic building, nearly 500,000 square feet, which used to be a parking deck. Yup, a parking deck.,” Bonnett writes.

September 17 is also known as Citizenship Day and Constitution Day. And on the campus of Wayne State University as part of their Civic Festival, there was a swearing in ceremony Monday for new U.S. citizens. "This is the first time we're doing a naturalization ceremony. It has been part of a dream to host a naturalization ceremony at the festival," said Marc Kruman, director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship. Twenty-six people were sworn in during the emotional ceremony. "It is amazingly cool and it is an extraordinary emotional moment not just for the new citizens, their families and friends, but for anyone looking on," Kruman said. Professor Kruman said he hopes this becomes an annual event at the festival, and that it captures exactly what they hope to accomplish at the Center for the Study of Citizenship.  

A dream came true Monday for 25 people who were sworn in as U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony at Wayne State University to mark Constitution Day. U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith was the keynote speaker at the event and administered the Oath of Allegiance to the new citizens.

Jeffrey Horner, senior lecturer of Urban Studies, wrote an article for The Conversation about the history of segregation in Detroit. He wrote: “Police routinely used violent force against blacks in the U.S. before the 1940s, primarily as a means of preserving segregation in cities. It became a last line of defense for segregationists after the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 weakened the ability of property owners to refuse to sell to people of color. 

Marc Kruman, professor of American history and director of the Center for the Study of Citizenship at Wayne State University, reflects on Sen. McCain’s legacy. Kruman says McCain’s final words remind him of George Washington's words addressed to the American people when he left office.. “We minimize what McCain was saying when we simply refer to it as his ‘final letter,’” he says. 

As you watch fireflies flit around your backyard at night, do you ever wonder, "How does that firefly do it? What makes him glow?" Chemistry professor A. Paul Schaap asked himself this very question while working in his lab at Wayne State University where he was searching for the molecule at the heart of "bioluminescence."