Once considered the gold standard of career development, the MBA degree faces a new question of relevance. Business schools in Michigan are struggling to sell the master's programs as they face staggering budget cuts and enrollment declines brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand in graduate education often coincides with economic uncertainty, but in the case of a global pandemic, experts aren't so sure. At Wayne State University, Kiantee Jones, assistant dean of graduate programs at the Mike Ilitch School of Business, is thinking about recruitment in a new way. While the raw number of MBA applications this fall is up slightly from last year, the number of people moving past the first phase of the process dropped off significantly, Jones said. There are 223 new MBA students at the school this year, compared to 270 last year. The business school's budget for fiscal year 2020-21 hasn't been finalized, but Jones expects a 5 percent cut. Wayne State's niche of part-time, mainly online classes would seem better protected from the pandemic than its competitors' models, but "virtually" attracting new students has been a headache, Jones said. The work- and learn-from-home age caused a disconnect between the school and companies such as Lear Corp., DTE Energy Co. and the automakers, which provide its main pipeline of students. "We used to get flooded with applications," Jones said. "We didn't really have to put forth a great effort. We were invited to corporations. We were setting up tables. We had a really good connection with the employees at these corporations. It was just easier." Jones said since the pandemic started, the business school launched monthly online information sessions and added virtual grad fairs in hopes of keeping students engaged. Jones said she believes the challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis are long-term, but like her counterparts at UM and MSU, she remains optimistic about the demand for and value of an MBA degree, even if the program is forced to change permanently.

We’re living through one of the worst economic crises America has ever experienced. Roughly 55 million people have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic hit back in March. More than 70,000 small businesses have closed forever. The Aspen Institute estimates one in five renters are at risk of being evicted by the end of this month. With all of the uncertainty and upheaval in our economy and the world more generally, what kinds of decisions should we be making with our own money? What does all of this mean for our ability to plan for the future — or even just get through the day? Matthew Roling is the executive director of Wayne State University’s office of business innovation and teaches personal finance at Wayne State’s business school. He says many Americans are looking for ways to make sure they have cash available to them, instead of being tied up in assets. “Cash is king in a way that it really never has been before because we really don’t know what’s around the corner,” says Roling. “We’re just starting to measure the impact that this has had on the long term [health] of the US economy.” He also notes that while many working-class and low-income people are being hit especially hard during the pandemic, wealthier people are taking advantage of new opportunities to make more money. “This is becoming a tale of two economies,” he says.

Thursday's jobless report from the U.S. Department of Labor is grim, showing around 1.1 million Americans filing for unemployment insurance last week. Executive Director of Wayne State's Office of Business Innovation Matthew Roling said the increase from last week indicates Americans are still struggling to get back on their feet during this pandemic. “It’s not a good sign," he said. "The economists that had been polled had a consensus estimate that the jobless claims would come in at around 900,000. And ultimately we came in at around 200,000 higher than that. And that might not seem like a lot, but that's a city the size of Grand Rapids," he said. “The recovery isn’t happening as fast as everyone would like it to.” In Michigan, the slow re-opening of some businesses offers a glimmer, albeit small - of optimism. Around 2,000 fewer workers applied for unemployment help compared to the previous week. “That’s really upsetting to those families but I think we can look into it and find some positives for Michigan’s economy," he said. However, with Michigan's unemployment insurance just more than $362 per week, Roling said getting that federal assistant is going to be vital for the hundreds of thousands in Michigan still grappling with unemployment.

When Bertie Greer, an associate dean at the Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University who studies diversity within companies, tuned into a news conference featuring Mayor Mike Duggan and nine executives of Detroit's largest companies, she was surprised to see just how many business leaders were in attendance, and that their words moved beyond the usual language of diversity being good for their bottom line. Instead, they focused more on their impact on the community. This moment felt different to her. “Prior to this crisis, executives were too afraid to upset the other half, and instead made the economic case for diversity,” Greer said. “There’s a crisis, everyone gets upset, we hire (more diverse employees), and then nothing else is done.”

If you’ve ventured out into the world lately, you might be noticing a troubling trend — retail workers not wearing masks. This practice might make you uncomfortable as a customer, but is it illegal? And what’s required of local businesses as Michigan’s economy reopens anyway? Beyond what’s written in the law and the guidance, there’s also what’s best for business. “People really have to exercise a good deal of common sense, stay informed, and make things available to their employees, particularly if they asked to be protected and to wear a face mask,” says Marick Masters, a business professor and interim chair of the Department of Finance at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business. “If you have the potential to interact with a customer, you are probably best inclined to wear a face mask. I think that trust is absolutely critical, particularly if you’re trying to restart your business and want people to feel comfortable coming back in,” Masters says. ”There are going to be people that are going to be hesitant to come back in if word-of-mouth comes out that people don’t have face masks or they seem casual about it. I think that you are better off from both a legal standpoint and a trust standpoint, and going the extra mile and trying to reassure people, that you’re doing everything humanly possible to protect the safety of your employees and your customers.” 

Walter Reuther is known as the man who gave birth to the UAW, helped create the middle class and fought for civil rights. He introduced the notion of profit-sharing to factory workers and he was a noted civil rights leader, even standing alongside Martin Luther King Jr. during the famous 1963 "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C. "He's no doubt iconic," said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University who specializes in labor. "He provided progressive leadership that showed the union not only as a bargaining organization, but a leader of social change too." Right up to his death, Reuther was critical of the AFL-CIO for not organizing minorities and workers in the South, Masters said. At the time that Reuther passed away, the union was at the height of its power, Masters said. But there were the early signs of challenges. "You saw the very beginnings of foreign auto companies, they were gaining some traction and he saw that as a call for alarm," Masters said. "I think if he'd have been alive, the way the unions and the companies responded to that threat would have been different."

Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson has been hosting hour-long specials on 101.9 WDET where local experts answer listener questions on COVID-19. For this special, Marick Masters interim chair of the Department of Finance at Wayne State’s Mike Ilitch School of Business, joined other experts to answer questions from tweets, email and call-ins. Economists say Michigan is now at depression-level unemployment. One million people are now jobless. To help residents, Congress passed a stimulus package and expanded unemployment benefits to self-employed and gig economy workers, among others. That has meant an unprecedented surge of jobless claims and applications, which has challenged the state’s unemployment agency’s ability to handle that volume of claims. When eligibility opened up for workers who were previously denied unemployment benefits, the state’s unemployment website malfunctioned under the weight of all of the people hoping to take advantage of the expanded benefits. As of April 17, Michigan has paid out $823 million to 765,000 Michiganders, with about 300,000 more residents expected to receive benefits for the first time next week. 

As more Michiganders file for unemployment and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay at home order is extended through April 30, the question now turns to how do we get Michigan open again, when some of the restrictions are lifted and people can start going back to work? Everywhere you look it's like a ghost town. Businesses are closed and millions of people are looking for work. However, after all of this passes – how do businesses get back on track and bring customers back? How does Michigan open up again? "Well to put it into perspective, the Michigan economy has already taken a very hard hit," said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University. With hundreds of thousands of businesses closed across Michigan, the state's economy is feeling the pain. "Payroll has gone down from about 4.5 million to under 3.3 million," Masters said. "It’s estimated that in Michigan this quarter unemployment will jump to 24 percent." However, Masters says there is some hopeful news. Depending on when this pandemic starts to slow down, we could start seeing a resurgence of local businesses.

Nearly 3.3 million people are out of work in the United States, according to the most recent jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor; quadrupling the previous record set in 1982. "These numbers are unprecedented. 3.3 million jobless claims. I think the high water mark in the 80s was 600,000. No one saw this coming," said Matthew Roling, executive director of Wayne State's Office of Business Innovation. And in Michigan, unemployment claims are also way up. There's been a 550 percent increase in the number of claims filed compared to those usually filed during this time of year, according to the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency. "And I think it speaks to the total lack of clarity that most employers feel right now," Roling said. He added that small businesses in the state have been hit especially hard under the "Stay Home, Stay Safe" executive order. “Employers don’t really have the freedom or flexibility with their balance sheets the money that they have available, to keep these employees on. And so the most humane thing for them to do is to let these folks go so that they can seek benefits," he said. But Roling also pointed out that Detroit's automakers shifting gears during this crisis, to help make vital medical equipment, is moving Michigan in the right direction in the both the short and long-term. “While obviously making ventilators might not employ the same number of people as making pick-up trucks, a lot of Michigan’s economy is based manufacturing," he said, noting that industry tends.

It’s been a wild roller coaster ride on Wall Street this past week. Last week saw one of the biggest drops in the Dow’s history. Yesterday, the market saw its biggest single-day jump in history. Matthew Roling is the Interim Chair for the Department of Accounting at Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business. Roling told Detroit Today host Stephen Henderson that “the market rewards patience, diversification and low fees.” He says the large drop last week in stocks was undeniably a reflection of the interconnection between the U.S. and Chinese economies, adding that the consensus cause of the dip by economists was the coronavirus outbreak in China. “It was a realization by the market that what’s going on with this virus might seriously wreak havoc on our economy.”

Jackson College students wishing to pursue a business management degree from Wayne State University soon can do so without the commute. Starting May 4, business tools and applications and advanced organizational behavior classes from Wayne State’s Mike Ilitch School of Business will be available for enrollment for the summer semester at Jackson College. “We hope to expand our schedule in the future to include additional majors within the Ilitch School,” said Carol Baldwin, WSU’s manager of marketing and communications of educational outreach. “Students also have the option of enrolling in online courses.” The Mike Ilitch School of Business faculty will teach all courses, including Prity Patel, who is available to meet with Jackson College students from Monday to Wednesday and by appointment. “Jackson students can transfer up to 82 credits to Wayne State by following an articulation agreement that is in place between our two institutions,” Baldwin said. WSU Provost Keith Whitfield believes the partnership is equally beneficial for them. “As a public institution, we are thrilled about this new partnership with Jackson College because it will allow us to serve a new group of students that we haven’t previously reached directly,” Whitfield said in a news release. “Most of our partnerships are in the tri-county area, so this is a big and exciting step west for us. We’ve had great conversations with President Phelan and Jackson’s leadership team, and the idea of bringing a four-year business degree to this campus is exciting. We are proud of what we do in Detroit and we believe this partnership will be an asset in Jackson as well.”

The General Motors lawsuit accusing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and its predecessor entities of corrupting labor negotiations as far back as 2009 is a bombshell, but several labor experts say its impact on current bargaining between the UAW and FCA could be limited. That's not to say the allegations in the 95-page complaint filed Wednesday in federal court, naming FCA, Alphons Iacobelli, its onetime lead labor negotiator and a convicted felon, among others, won't make the task of ratification harder. But it's not clear the issues raised, many already suggested by the ongoing federal corruption probe, will be a deciding factor. Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University, said that if nothing else, the lawsuit puts an even bigger spotlight on negotiations. "I think they have to be extraordinarily careful that what they're doing is being watched microscopically by many parties," he said. "I think they will be extremely careful to avoid the appearance of any background deal (and be) as transparent as possible." Any impact on talks or how workers view a deal is not fully clear, but  deviation from the pattern could generate skepticism. The pattern deal, which includes gains for temporary and in-progression workers, would be costly for FCA because of its heavier reliance on them. "If the agreement between Chrysler and the UAW were to deviate in any way (from the pattern at GM and Ford) to the disadvantage of workers, people would say, 'We told you so, you'd better look in to this,'" Masters said.

Armed with care packages, clothes and clinical supplies, medical students in Detroit are learning outside the classroom. They are putting their knowledge and boots to the pavement, providing free health care to the city's homeless. Each week, students under the supervision of a registered physician or nurse practitioner get on their bikes and look for those in need. Programs such as Michigan State University's Detroit Street Care, Wayne State University's Street Medicine Detroit and the University of Michigan's Wolverine Street Medicine work together to treat as many of the city's homeless as possible. Jedidiah Bell, a fourth-year med student at Wayne State University and president of Street Medicine Detroit, says seeing issues from lack of health care access in his home country of Zimbabwe made him want to participate. "When I moved to the states for university and medical school, I saw the similar things [lack of access] with the homeless population," said Bell. "When I saw street medicine, I appreciated the model of how can we take medical care to the street and build up trust to bridge the gap between the homeless and the medical world." While the programs provide a vital service to the community, Bell says the real-world experience teaches students things the classroom or clinic can't. "It teaches medical students to hone-in on, not just medical conditions of patients, but to be able to sit down and form relationships and discuss other things that might be contributing to [patients'] health but might not come up during a traditional medical encounter." Bell says there's a widespread belief that the "students take away more from people on the streets than they take away from us." Anneliese Petersen, a second-year medical student at Wayne State University and volunteer with Street Medicine Detroit, says the experience also shows upcoming medical professionals another side of health -- the social determinants. "Things that are not strictly medical-based but have a strong impact on health and well-being. Income, access to health care, access to medication, being able to eat well, sleep well, to be able to relax and not be under chronic stress."

The UAW strike against General Motors is now in its second week. After 9 days of striking, where do negotiations stand? And how does this strike compare to other auto worker strikes throughout history? “It is a sliver of impact that is potentially had in this strike compared to what you had 50 years ago,” says Marick Masters, a labor expert and professor of business and interim chair of the finance department at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business. “And I think that speaks to the decline of labor.” According to Masters, a major strike in 1970 saw approximately one million workers striking against GM, while today, there are fewer than 50,000 people involved. One significant hurdle to overcome before both sides reach an agreement is addressing the disparity between full-time and temporary workers. ”I think it’s going to be very difficult to get a tentative agreement,” Masters says. “You have the use of temporary workers… who don’t get all the benefits that so-called legacy workers do. This is sparking a discussion about the role of the middle class.” In addition to the gap that exists between full-time and temporary workers, Masters points to the increasing divide between executive and hourly worker pay, saying that executive salaries are going up while typical workers’ wages have stagnated or even fallen. He says this is making it “harder for those in the shrinking middle [class] to get ahead.” UAW workers are compensated $250 per week while on strike, and last week General Motors announced that they were dropping health-care plans for striking workers, increasing the tension between both sides. In the face of those economic implications, is a strike the most effective way to get a point across? According to Masters, yes: “A lot of the protections that we take for granted in the workplace today were won by unions and they were hard-fought battles by workers who made great sacrifices.”

The women featured in this Notable Women in Education Leadership report were selected by a team of Crain’s Detroit Business editors based on their career accomplishments, track record of success in the field, contributions to their community and mentorship of others, as outlined in a detailed nomination form. Wayne State University awardees included: Monica Brockmeyer, senior associate provost for student success; Jennifer Lewis, associate professor of mathematics education and executive director, educator excellence, Detroit public schools community district; and Toni Somers, associate dean and professor at the Mike Ilitch School of Business.

General Motors stopped paying for health care coverage for striking workers Tuesday, the company confirmed. That means striking GM union workers are eligible for union-paid COBRA to continue their health care benefits. The latest development added to tension as GM and the UAW returned to the bargaining table Tuesday morning. The two sides negotiated until about 9 p.m. Monday, sources said. Meanwhile, more details emerged about GM's offer to the UAW. Two sources familiar with GM's offer said it called for a 2% wage increase for the first and third year of the four-year contract and 2% lump sum payments the second and fourth years. UAW members are emotional after GM moved to shutter U.S. plants, so the fear that the automaker wants to break the union is understandable to Marick Masters, business professor at Wayne State University who specializes in labor. But he said, it's not realistic. “If that were the case, they could take more draconian measures, such as hiring other workers, encouraging people to break the line and go back to work or GM could have had a workforce ready to hire before this even started,” said Masters. GM likely knows it will have a union for the foreseeable future, which is why it is structuring a contract that allows it to be more cost competitive against nonunion automakers, he said. That means having the ability to have a larger temporary workforce and multiple wage tiers is crucial to the carmaker. But the two sides must reach an agreement in short order for several reasons, he said.  

GM workers have been on strike since midnight Monday. Company and union leaders are back at the bargaining table in Detroit. They’re trying to hammer out a new contract after GM workers walked off the job for their first strike since 2007. But there’s a third, unseen presence at the bargaining table this time. It’s the U.S. Justice Department, and its investigation into alleged corruption by some UAW officials. Peter Henning is a professor of law at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor. He says that when the feds investigated union leaders in the past, it was usually over suspected ties to organized crime. But this may be something entirely different. “It appears that it was essentially treating some of the funds like their own little piggy bank,” said Henning. Some UAW officials allegedly devised a scheme to use union member dues for personal expenses, like California luxury accommodations and golf. These are only allegations, and neither Jones nor Williams has been charged. Despite GM’s profits right now, the automaker is looking at a possible looming recession, weakening demand, and tariff challenges. It’s leaning heavily on truck and SUV sales, as the industry is becoming more technologically complex and electrified. Marick Masters teaches business and labor studies at Wayne State. He says the UAW will inevitably have to make a less-than-perfect deal for its members—but with many union members’ skeptical of the leadership’s credibility, leaders are more likely to “play to the crowd” and less likely to make a deal. “And that becomes a vicious circle in which inflexibility on one side leads to inflexibility on the other side,” said Masters. “I think at this point in time, the company has the leverage, because of the cloud that hangs over the UAW leadership.”

General Motors Co.’s factory workers took to the picket lines Monday, hoisting signs reading “UAW on Strike” and blocking traffic into plants, in an effort to secure better pay, more job security and other benefits ahead of an expected U.S. car market slowdown. The United Auto Workers union over the weekend called on nearly 46,000 full-time factory workers at GM to walk off the job starting early Monday morning, after negotiations for a new four-year labor agreement hit a standstill. The nationwide walkout is the UAW’s first in 12 years and involves more than 30 factories across 10 states. It is also one of the largest private-sector work stoppage in decades, coming at a time when unions more broadly have pulled back on striking companies. Work-stoppages involving more than 1,000 employees are down, falling from more than 200 a year in the early 1980s to fewer than 20 annually in recent years. “The strike really has lost its utility as a viable weapon in the private sector,” said Marick Masters, a professor of business at Wayne State University. “You very rarely see an employer willing to buckle.” At the same time, he said both sides have an incentive to reach a deal quickly. “The company knows it’s going to have losses, and workers know they’re going to miss a paycheck,”  Masters said.

For more than a century, whether in peacetime or war and regardless of the weather, the labor movement in Michigan has traded in its working boots for walking shoes and taken to the streets for Labor Day. Detroit's parade, in past years, has stepped off from Belle Isle and later from Grand Circus Park. More recently it has started at Michigan Avenue and headed east from Corktown to downtown. Detroit's first Labor Day celebration took place on Aug. 16, 1884, and attracted a crowd of 50,000 people to Recreation Park, according to the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University. That was a decade before Labor Day became an official national holiday, observed on the first Monday in September. Over those years the celebration would turn into a march rather than just a rally. "In its early years, the parade was used to voice the concerns of a fledgling labor movement and to celebrate the progress made by organized labor," according to a Reuther Library report on Labor Day in Detroit. Kristen Chinery, a reference archivist at the Reuther library, said "parades were very popular" then and to celebrate Labor Day that way was a "natural choice."

High school sports participation dropped for the first time in three decades in 2018, according to data from the National Federation of High School State Associations released Tuesday. Nearly 8 million students took part in interscholastic sports in 2018, but that number is down more than 43,000 students from the year before. Some of that is natural, said Scott Tainsky, who studies sports economics at Wayne State University. If you think about that decline in football participation as 1 percent a year, that’s nothing to fret over. The United States has five major participatory and spectator sports (football, basketball, baseball, soccer and hockey). They all jockey not only for eyeballs on TV screens, but also for youth players. Football had a great run of growth in the 2000s, and now the numbers — both in participation and in professional viewership — are inching back down. High school football is still in fine shape. It is by far the most popular high school sport: 400,000 more boys participate in football than the next most popular sport, outdoor track and field. But the same issues you’ve heard before about football, injury concerns and cost, are driving more high school athletes away from the sport. “Those aren’t things that are likely to be resolved overnight, but they’re also not things that would cause some precipitous drop going forward,” Tainsky said. In other words, something else significant is going to have to come along to really dent football’s place as the king of high school athletics. Otherwise, Tainsky said, these participation numbers should level out over time.