Warrior Way Back: An innovative debt forgiveness program at WStU

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. 

October 19, 2018

Hamtramck will soon break ground on its first archaeological dig

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. 

October 18, 2018

Five reasons to stop reading your children fairytales now

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.

October 18, 2018

No-spanking zones? In one Detroit suburb, they're a thing

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.

October 5, 2018

Inside the grassroots fight to end gerrymandering in Michigan

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.

September 26, 2018

Bill Schuette no longer touts Trump ties, but president’s shadow follows

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 20, 2018

WSU hosts naturalization as 25 people sworn in as U.S. citizens

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.  

September 17, 2018

25 in Metro Detroit mark Constitution Day as new citizens

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.

September 17, 2018

Police killings of 3 black men left a mark on Detroit’s history

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. 

September 10, 2018

Wayne State historian on McCain

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. 

August 31, 2018

Fireflies inspired a WSU professor’s medical research

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."

August 14, 2018

Fighting with your spouse can make chronic conditions worse

If you’re living with a chronic illness—as half of all Americans are—then you may want to check any unnecessary bickering. According to a recent study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the only thing worse than living with a chronic condition is fighting with your partner while living with a chronic condition. Researchers were interested in getting a better understanding of how the day-to-day interactions in a marriage impact the health of a person living with a chronic disease.

August 2, 2018

Michigan politicians, others react to Supreme Court redistricting decision

The Michigan Supreme Court decided late Tuesday to keep a proposal to change the way Michigan draws voting district lines on the November ballot in 4-3 decision released late Tuesday night. The decision came after months of contentious legal proceedings which kept the proposal, by the group Voters Not Politicians, in limbo. The opposition group, Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution,  unsuccessfully argued that the measure was too broad to legally go before voters. Instead, that group argued it would require a constitutional convention in order to make the changes. Susan Fino, professor of political science, commented to Bridge ahead of the decision last week. “It’s clearly a valid initiative petition that meets all the constitutional requirements, so unless the Court is willing to expose themselves as overtly political, they really can’t keep it off the ballot.”

July 31, 2018

N.M. telescope for Wayne State magnifies ties to late friend

Russ Carroll was a bit above it all and Dan Zowada was more down to Earth, but they shared an interest in the stars, and the two kids like that in a class will always form their own constellation. As high school ended, they took separate paths. Carroll, who is brilliant, went mostly west. Zowada, who was creative, stayed put. Then three years and two weeks ago, Zowada died — which is where the rest of the story begins. Nearly 2,000 miles away from the glow of Detroit's skyline, in the desert of southwest New Mexico, sits the Dan Zowada Memorial Observatory — Wayne State University’s gateway to the cosmos. The observatory and land were gifted to WSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy by Carroll, a retired entrepreneur and astronomer, in honor of Zowada, his late childhood friend.

July 30, 2018

Archaeological digs reveal details about Detroit's history

Professors at Wayne State University were asked to investigate a three-story worker’s row house, or tenement house, located in Corktown. Thomas Killion, associate professor of anthropology at Wayne State and his students worked for three years on the archaeological dig at the row house, one of Detroit's oldest surviving structures.

July 16, 2018

Busting 3 common myths about homelessness

As a young psychologist in the 1980s who had researched treatment of the mentally ill, I was concerned by many reports suggesting that the growing number of homeless people may be due to deinstitutionalization.

July 5, 2018

Digging for mid-1800s trash uncovers lives of Corktown residents

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 house was built in 1849 on 6th Street, he said. Workers moved into the building in 1850.

July 1, 2018

Why is suicide on the rise in the US – but falling in most of Europe?

Suicide now ranks in the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. In 2015, 44,193 Americans died by their own hand. That was more than the number killed in motor vehicle accidents (37,757) and over twice the number who died through homicide (17,793).

June 28, 2018

Juneteenth: Freedom’s promise still denied to thousands of blacks

June 19 marks Juneteenth, a celebration of the de facto end of slavery in the United States. For hundreds of thousands of African-Americans stuck in pretrial detention – accused but not convicted of a crime, and unable to leave because of bail – that promise remains unfulfilled. And coming immediately after Father’s Day, it’s also a reminder of the loss associated with the forced separation of families.

June 19, 2018

How contaminated is the fish we eat?

Dr. Donna Kashian, professor of biological science at Wayne State University, said people need to concern themselves with the contamination of fish. "If you are pregnant, if you are under 11 years old, you are going to be more sensitive to some of these compounds," Kashian said.

June 12, 2018