Community in the news

News outlet logo for favicons/voanews.com.png

Groups, colleges to help former students finish their studies

Dawn Medley is a student affairs official at Wayne State University, a public four-year institution in Detroit, Michigan. She says the Lumina Foundation reached out to the school about setting an example for how schools could help improve student graduation rates earlier this year. Together, they began examining student data and found that Wayne State had 13,000 students drop out of college without earning a degree. So, Wayne State launched a program called “Warrior Way Back.” 
News outlet logo for favicons/dbusiness.com.png

Wayne State University in Detroit joins national effort to increase college access

Wayne State University is participating in a national effort by 130 public universities and systems to increase college access, close the achievement gap, and award hundreds of thousands of degrees by 2025. The participating institutions will work in clusters of four-12, and Wayne State President M. Roy Wilson will lead a cluster of 11 urban universities. Together, the institutions enroll about 3 million students, including 1 million who receive Pell Grants, or federal grants for college. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) is organizing the effort, which is called Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success.
News outlet logo for favicons/modeldmedia.com.png

Detroit businesses and institutions contributing to employee welfare with on-site childcare

Wayne State University has two on-site childcare centers for faculty, staff, students and community members: the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute Early Childhood Center and the College of Education Early Childcare Center, both serving children ages 2-and-a-half to 5 years old. Even with two centers, WSU still is experiencing an overwhelming need for additional childcare. WSU's Daycare Implementation Committee works to identify options for childcare in the Midtown area, including expanding on-site campus care.
News outlet logo for favicons/candgnews.com.png

Wayne State recognized for improving student retention and graduation rates

Wayne State University is being recognized for strides made in improving its student retention and graduation rates. The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities named Wayne State University the winner of its 2018 Project Degree Completion Award. “We’re an institution that has a lot of support resources for students,” said Dawn Medley, Wayne State’s associate vice president of enrollment management. “We restructured our financial aid programs so over one-third of our incoming freshman class had zero out-of-pocket expense. I think students are responding to these changes, because our freshman class grew 15 percent over last year, which is huge. It’s our largest freshman cohort in the institution’s history.”
News outlet logo for favicons/michiganradio.org.png

How two women in Detroit neighborhoods are bridging the city’s divide

Sonia Brown — known to many as "Auntie Na" — works with the Kresge Foundation and Wayne State University. She has created a health clinic, food pantry, clothing distribution center, and tutoring center called "Auntie Na's House." The “village,” as Brown refers to it, is on Yellowstone Street on Detroit's west side. “Our programs are community-based. It started off with just trying to help some of the young mothers in the community with day-to-day living and responsibilities: clothes and food," Brown said. Now, the program helps in a variety of ways including babysitting children, providing educational opportunities, and holding meet and greets for neighbors.
News outlet logo for favicons/detroitnews.com.png

Youth midterm turnout spikes after Michigan campus drives

Young Michigan voters turned out in larger numbers for the midterm election than any time in recent history, thanks in part to campus registration drives by the state and activist groups. At Wayne State University, the Wayne County Clerk's office reported that turnout doubled from 152 voters to 335 at precinct 152, the closest precinct to campus. At Wayne State, groups worked to eliminate the transportation and timing barriers that student voters face on Election Day. The Student Senate partnered with the Detroit Department of Transportation to bus students to the polls, while NextGen Michigan coordinated shuttles to and from campus to precinct 152. Student volunteers also drove voters not only to precincts in Detroit, but also to precincts outside of the city.   
News outlet logo for favicons/luminafoundation.org.png

Powerful partnerships fuel Detroit’s rebirth

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.”
News outlet logo for favicons/bridgemi.com.png

Once embarrassed by its graduation numbers, Wayne State becomes a model

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.
News outlet logo for favicons/insidehighered.com.png

Universities team up on completion

Eight years ago, Wayne State University was widely criticized after a report from the Education Trust identified its relatively low graduation rates and a deep achievement gap between black and white students at the university. M. Roy Wilson became Wayne State’s president in 2013. He said improving completion rates has been the university’s top priority ever since. “We went to work immediately,” said Wilson. “We decided we were going to take the approach of not making excuses.”
News outlet logo for favicons/detroitnews.com.png

Improving Detroiters' health is focus of Wayne State summit

Residents of Wayne County are the unhealthiest of Michigan's 83 counties, according to a ranking by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Bridging that disparity was the target of a Wednesday summit at Wayne State University. Participants suggested ways to promote healthy eating, behaviors and environments. But the focus was on disparities affecting Detroit’s population, including asthma, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. The university brought together leaders of corporations, health care systems,  community organizations, foundations, policymakers and academics.
News outlet logo for favicons/detroitpraisenetwork.com.png

Conversations with Wayne State University 11-07-18

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.
News outlet logo for favicons/cbc.ca.png

'Young people are very excited,' Michiganders getting midterm-ready

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.
News outlet logo for favicons/detroitnews.com.png

Flint water crisis prompts Schuette, Whitmer to accuse each other of hurting victims

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. 
News outlet logo for favicons/crainsdetroit.com.png

Family aims to continue legacy of Arbor Drugs founder Applebaum

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.
News outlet logo for favicons/aamc.org.png

Successes and challenges facing academic medicine highlighted

M. Roy Wilson, M.D., president of Wayne State University and chair of the AAMC board of directors, called his presence in academic medicine “a statistical anomaly.” “My younger sister and I basically raised ourselves as our parents were never around,” he said. “Our mother was addicted to gambling and our father to alcohol. Left to ourselves, we were subjected to experiences that no child should ever have to endure.” While speaking about “The Most Important Lesson I Learned in Medical School,” Wilson echoed the words he heard from a clinical faculty member during his surgery clerkship: “Be good to medicine, and medicine will be good to you.”
News outlet logo for favicons/clickondetroit.com.png

Wayne State University unveils new float to debut at 92nd America's Thanksgiving Parade

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.” 
News outlet logo for favicons/bridgemi.com.png

Lead levels drop in Michigan kids after Flint spike. But so does testing.

“Lead is still in all these older homes in Michigan, and until it is substantially abated or these homes are removed from the housing stock, there is still a hazard to kids,” said Lyke Thompson, director of Wayne State University’s Center for Urban Housing. In Detroit, at least 10 percent of kids in eight of 27 city ZIP Codes tested positive for elevated lead levels. Many are in some of the city’s oldest and most blighted neighborhoods, such as the Virginia Park neighborhood in the city’s 48206 ZIP Code, where 19 percent of tested children had elevated levels last year. Thompson has led efforts to test children in that Detroit ZIP Code and another, 48214, where 16 percent of children had elevated lead levels last year. He said 85 percent of the 1,000 homes he’s tested in that neighborhood were positive for lead. It’s one of several initiatives in cities like Detroit and Grand Rapids, but remediation efforts are expensive.