Wayne State’s School of Medicine Monday announced it surpassed its $190-million goal in the university’s Pivotal Moments Campaign, which concluded Sept. 30. The campus-wide campaign was launched in 2014 to raise $750 million. It was the most ambitious comprehensive fundraising effort in WSU’s history.

William Shakespeare's “As You Like It” treads the boards at the Hilberry Theatre beginning Friday, Oct.26 and running through Nov. 11. Directed by Lavinia Hart and set in present day Appalachia, this comedy allows audiences to view a classic story through a creative lens that transports you to the hills of Tennessee. "Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' is universal in theme and characters, easily translating to any century in any city or countryside, revealing surprising cultural connections to the here and now," says Hart.

Think your job’s done when your child gets accepted to college? Think again. College plans can get the kibosh between acceptance and attendance. It’s called “summer melt,” and it thwarts some students’ post-secondary plans. It can happen for a variety of reasons, too. Sometimes focus shifts. Other times things can crop up that complicate matters. Wayne State offers a chance to participate, free of charge, in a program called APEX Scholars, short for Academic Pathways to Excellence. 

Robert Sedler, Wayne State law professor and constitutional law expert, was a guest on the Craig Fahle Show discussing the state of the U.S. Supreme Court following the addition of Justice Kavanaugh. Sedler suggested that the public should ignore the media hype and the political statements from both sides. He said the Supreme Court acts as an institution and only about a third or less of its 70 or so cases each year are constitutional cases adding that the greater part of the Court's work is interpreting and applying federal laws and deciding questions involving the workings of the federal government. 

Detroit's vision of trading in its moniker of the Motor City for the Mobility City is buoyed by several coordinated events through this week. The four-day CSforAll Summit, a national computer science education symposium, kicks off Monday at Wayne State University.

It's hard to look at a deal announced this week between the State of Michigan and Canadian oil giant Enbridge and not feel like Gov. Rick Snyder is really rolling the dice: Gambling that aging, damaged Line 5, an oil pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac, won't have a significant breach or rupture in the 7 to 10 years. "This is a state and a department of environmental quality that have an absolutely horrendous record of everything from technical judgement to oversight, to, frankly, fundamentally protecting people’s water and people themselves. It’s like a bad deal between the two worst actors," says Noah Hall, a professor at Wayne State University Law School and founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.

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.

Professor Peter J. Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School, has been named the Law School’s inaugural A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair. Hammer, who joined the Law School faculty in 2003, is a leading voice on economic and social issues impacting Detroit and the nation. He has spent more than 25 years engaging in matters of human rights law and development in Cambodia. Hammer is an expert on domestic health law and policy, as well as international public health and economic development. The $1.5 million endowed chair is part of a $3 million gift from the late A. Alfred Taubman in 2006 that led to the construction of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights building at Wayne Law.

Selfies have become a matter of life and death. New research identified 259 other deaths worldwide in the past six years related to selfies, of which more than a million are taken a day. In addition to dangerous selfie poses, experts also warn that posting selfies also may inadvertently expose people to other dangers: identity theft, cyber bullying and, for the selfies in bad taste, potential disqualification from school and work opportunities. Dr. David Rosenberg, the chair of the Wayne State University psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, said this technology certainly can be "a good servant" by enhancing quality of life, but it also tends to be a "cruel and crippling master." Still, not all news about selfies is bad, and the new selfie study offered a potential solution.

President M. Roy Wilson joined WJR host Paul W. Smith for a discussion about various topics and updates at Wayne State. President Wilson also will be speaking at the Detroit Economic Club Oct. 9 on the occasion of the university’s sesquicentennial. His topic is: Reintroducing Wayne State University: Transformation after 150 Years in the Heart of Detroit.

The hot housing market in Midtown is squeezing out Wayne State University students who want to live near campus. Officials at WSU say an increasing number of students want housing in the area but are finding it difficult to afford rents targeted to working professionals. “A lot of the apartments, particularly to the south of us and east of us, serve primarily students, and their rents are going up so high because of the desirability of living in Midtown,” WSU President M. Roy Wilson told The Detroit News.

At Wayne State University, Professor Amar Basu is creating a heart rate monitor in the form of an earring, scheduled for release in 2019. “There are certain types of diagnostics, like heart rate monitoring, that are appropriate to do continuously,” he says, “and the advantage of wearable sensors is that they allow you to do that.”

A recent analysis by two Wayne State University professors found that roughly one in three elementary school students changes schools every year — often in the middle of the school year. When the Wayne State professors, Sarah Winchell Lenhoff and Ben Pogodzinski, analyzed data from Detroit district and charter schools in the 2015-16 school year, they found that nearly 60 percent of students who live in Detroit — almost 50,000 children — were enrolled in two or more Detroit schools that year. Many had apparently boomeranged, returning eventually to the school where they started.

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.

Sarna Sutradhar, a 15-year-old Cass Technical High School student, has a dream to practice medicine some day. But seeing the long road from high school sophomore to doctor is not easy. Fortunately, a program she participated in last summer, the Community Health Career Pipeline (CHP), supported her goal to become a doctor by exposing her to the Detroit food system and the steps she needs to take to prepare for college. Through CHP, she participated in learning workshops and a work-study apprenticeship at the Wayne State University Farmers' Market, which provided her the opportunity to practice nutrition education, public speaking, and promotions. "Our goal is to provide a five-pillar streamlined and connected career development and community health program to support Detroit high school youth to enter college, obtain well-paying jobs, and change the health, economic, and social trajectories of their communities," says Noel Kulik, project director of CHP, a research fellow in the Center for Health and Community Impact, and faculty in the Division of Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies Division within the Wayne State University College of Education.  

A new internship partnership is currently underway with MBA students from the Sport and Entertainment Management program at the Mike Ilitch School of Business. Students are participating in and learning from a wide range of real-world experiences with the Tigers and Red Wings. "This rare opportunity gives Wayne State students unmatched access to one of the densest sports and entertainment districts in the U.S., along with professionals at world-class companies," said Scott Tainsky, associate professor of management and director of sport and entertainment management. "By the end of the program, students would have worked on high-profile projects and gained competitive experience in their chosen field. We are excited about bringing on even more students in Fall 2019."

A research team at Wayne State University recently received a four-year, $1.57 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its project, “Water and Health Infrastructure Resilience and Learning.” The award is part of a multi-institutional $2 million collaborative project funded under NSF’s Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes program.

Wayne State University’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is offering a new service to Muslim women on college campuses. The new group, which will meet weekly, aims to provide a place for women to identify and discuss the issues and struggles of being a Muslim woman on a college campus. Kaifa Alsoofy, a university counselor at Wayne State who came up with the idea for the group, said in her work as a counselor, she’s seen Muslim women face issues like identity struggles and family, cultural or religious expectations.

A research team led by Arun Iyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Wayne State University, has developed a nanoplatform technology that works in combination with existing chemotherapeutic drugs that may reverse drug-resistance in renal cell carcinoma.

Wayne State University is breaking ground on a major project for theater, music and dance. Campus officials and others will gather Thursday night to mark construction of the $65 million Gateway Performance Complex and the future home of the Gretchen Valade Jazz Center. The Performance Complex will have three theaters, production space for students and a cafe for guests who attend performances. Wayne State's Hilberry Theatre will be renovated to become a 200-seat jazz center named for Valade, a Detroit-area philanthropist and granddaughter of the founder of Carhartt Clothing. Valade has committed more than $9 million to Wayne State's jazz program. She founded Mack Avenue Records and owns the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe in Grosse Pointe Farms.