Wayne State University first lady Jacqueline Wilson has been selected as one of 25 women to receive the Michigan Women’s History Month Leadership in Action Award for her outstanding leadership, iconic presence and inspiring business acumen. Wilson’s achievements will be recognized during the second annual Career Mastered Women’s History Month Awards Program Gala on Monday, March 14, at Detroit’s Crown Plaza Riverfront Hotel. “I feel so honored to receive this award. I truly appreciate the recognition of my work,” Wilson said. “Throughout my life there have been many female role models who inspired me — among them are my mother, Oprah Winfrey and Audrey Hepburn for her class and style.” Wilson established the HIGH (Helping Individuals Go Higher) program with a mission to ensure no student abandons their dream of earning a degree solely because of housing or financial challenges. The HIGH program provides resources for students with needs such as housing support, textbooks and other school supplies, clothing, transportation, and child care assistance. “Working to help homeless students is a true passion,” Wilson said. “I’m so fortunate to be able to do that here at Wayne State University in Detroit.”       Other media mentionshttp://michronicleonline.com/2016/02/10/wayne-state-university-first-lady-jacqueline-wilson-to-be-honored-with-michigan-womens-history-month-leadership-in-action-award/

Gov. Rick Snyder wants lawmakers to pump an additional $61.2 million into Michigan's public universities, an increase designed to restore funding levels to 2011, the year before he took office. The increase amounts to a 4.3 percent raise. Half of the increase will go across the board to all universities and the other half will be added to performance funding for the universities. In addition, the budget recommendation will set the tuition increase cap for next year at 4.8 percent. That's up from last year's cap of 3.2 percent. Like in previous years, not every university will get a straight 4.3 percent increase. Instead, universities will be measured against performance standards in the following areas: weighted undergraduate completions in critical skills areas, research expenditures, 6-year graduation rates, total completions, administrative costs as a percentage of core expenditures and the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants. Wayne State University would get the smallest percentage increase, at 3.5 percent. Wayne State President M. Roy Wilson has said the current funding set-up penalizes Wayne State for doing heavy research while having a more open enrollment policy. “We are delighted that the governor is investing in higher education," Wilson said in a statement. "This is very welcome news, especially for students. However, this is the fifth consecutive year that Wayne State would receive the lowest percentage funding increase of Michigan's 15 public universities. The current metrics funding model penalizes Wayne State by inappropriately comparing us to other research intensive universities nationally that do not share Wayne State's urban mission to serve at-risk students. The continued use of this ill-conceived metrics funding model is systematically disadvantaging the state's only public, urban research university." Other media mentionshttp://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/09/michigan-higher-education-funding-snyder/80063654/http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/snyders_recommended_61m_boost.htmlhttp://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20160209/NEWS01/160209809/snyder-to-propose-4-3-percent-boost-for-public-universities

Since losing their daughter, Rebecca Joy Butler, at age 20 in 2011, Beverly and Timothy Butler have devoted their lives to shining a light on her story and celebrating her life by helping others. Becky Butler, a student at Wayne State University, was active on campus and as a member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. After her death, her parents established the Rebecca Joy Butler Memorial Endowed Scholarship to assist a student with financing their business education. The recipient needed to be a student at the Mike Ilitch School of Business and demonstrate the same zest for life, love for others and potential for leadership as Becky Butler. In 2014, a gift from an anonymous donor allowed for the establishment of the Rebecca Joy Butler Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship. The recipient of this scholarship — given for the first time this year — also must be a business student. Timothy Butler, an associate professor of supply chain management in the business school, sees the value of travel abroad, as he and his wife are involved with leading the study abroad program for the business school and have visited businesses in the Czech Republic, Poland and Italy. Since their daughter's death, the Butlers have made it their mission to spread awareness about the importance of donor registry. They have gotten involved in the Gift of Life Michigan Campus Challenge, an annual event enlisting people to register to be organ, tissue and eye donors. The challenge runs five weeks and puts college rivalries to life-saving purposes. During the Butlers' four years of involvement, the Wayne State team has registered a total of 3,000 new donors.  

Alicia Nails, director of Wayne State University’s Journalism Institute for Media Diversity, is working to ensure diversity in newsrooms across the U.S., one student at a time. “We really want students to see that they are driving their own train and they have to make choices and decisions … We focus on mantras or ideas. One that we are focusing on now is that when you are born you look like your parents but when you die you look like your decisions,” said Nails. An Emmy Award-winning journalist, Nails also has a law degree from Wayne State. “You have to be realistic about individual skill sets and what might be their strengths and what it might take for them to reach what they want but always be in a positive, informing way but realistic, as well, so you don’t have somebody who is out in the world frustrated.”  

The season of student graduation shows is upon us, with the first at Wayne State University up through Feb. 12 in the Art Department Gallery. The “Graduating Seniors Exhibition” is a small show, with no more than a couple dozen pieces on display. But this all makes for a quick and easy walk-through that’s well worth the time. Among the best works are several watercolors by Robbie Aaron, “Empty.” Also intriguing is Aaron’s colorful, geometric “Mask #6” — a nice indication of the artist’s range. Check out Nicoletta Sarris’ “The Rocking Chair, ” Callie Hoskins’ “Upper Persuasion,” Evan Condron’s “Home” and “Seduction,” and Ashley Nivison’s “Mark Diptych.” Finally, the most-interesting photograph on display comes from Nicole Helegda’s “Hoarder #2.” The Graduating Seniors Exhibition runs through Feb. 12 at the Art Department Gallery in the Art Building on Wayne State University’s campus.  

St. John Providence Foundations President Susan Burns will return to Wayne State University on Monday to once again lead the Wayne State University Foundation and serve as vice president for development and alumni affairs. She will succeed veteran fundraiser Chacona Johnson, 62, who is retiring. Prior to serving as president of St. John Providence Foundations for the past seven years, Burns held a number of leadership development roles at WSU between 2001 and 2008, including those she will hold again. Burns, who has a bachelor’s in music management from Wayne State, has also led development efforts for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Kendall College of Art and Design and other organizations.  

Physicians educated by the Wayne State UniversitySchool of Medicine have been voted fourth in the nation by patient reviews at the eighth annual Vitals Patients’ Choice Awards. The reviews addressed bedside assistance, doctor-patient interaction time, how quickly doctors see the patients and other factors. The rankings are based on ratings by more than 6 million patients and are analyzed by Vitals. The organization works to provide cost and quality transparency through consumer engagement initiatives. “That patients rank the physicians we educate so highly should not come as a surprise,” Jack Sobel, M.D., dean of the WSU School of Medicine, said in the release. “Our graduates are in high demand across the nation when it comes to selecting physicians for residency programs, and they have honed their skills in urban clinical excellence in Detroit, skills that easily translate to excellent patient care no matter where they practice.” Wayne State’s School of Medicine has 18,000 alumni with 12,000 actively practicing.  

Washtenaw Community College (WCC) has cut a deal with the Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business that maximizes the value of some associate degrees from WCC for students earning a business degrees at WSU. Typically Wayne State accepts 64 transfer credits, but this agreement expands that limit for business students from WCC, who can cover most WSU general education and business foundation requirements, as well as electives, with credits transferred from eligible community college classes. Students who take full advantage of the program will be required to earn just 40 credits at Wayne State — predominantly core major requirements — to complete a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Majors are available in accounting, finance, information systems management, global supply chain management, management and marketing. “We’re thrilled that this partnership has come together,” said Linda Zaddach, assistant dean of student services in the Ilitch School. “It’s a great opportunity for WCC students to boost their credentials quickly and easily at Wayne State.” To streamline the transfer process and increase accessibility, Wayne State has developed similar partnerships with other two-year institutions in recent years. “We’ve launched a concerted effort to make it cost-effective and efficient for community college students to obtain a bachelor’s degree at Wayne State,” said Doug Freed, director of the university’s Transfer Student Success Center.  

Researchers at Wayne State University are studying compulsive hoarding in children, adolescence and adults. So far they’ve discovered that the earlier hoarding tendencies can be identified and parents can play a big part in treatment. WDET’s Amy Miller spoke with Dr. David Rosenberg, professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State. He says hoarding in children is a bigger problem than most people realize and that 80 percent of adult hoarders have the onset during childhood. But he says some of the symptoms are different in childhood.   

Matthew Seeger, professor of communication and dean of the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, wrote an op-ed regarding the Flint water crisis which he described as “probably the worst disaster to affect Michigan in recent memory.” Seeger wrote: “Disasters that are seen primarily as acts of God create less psychological impact and anger than those that are caused by human decisions and failures. While there are many failures and lots of blame to go around, one of major causalities has been effective communication and the trust that comes from people getting accurate, timely and consistent information from their state and local governments.” Seeger continued: “The state is now participating in a Joint Information Center to help facilitate the release of information with other state and local agencies. The state has adopted a much more transparent and cooperative stance. These are important first steps.  

Michigan's 15 public universities are hoping to convince legislators to establish "consistent and sufficient" funding in this year's budget cycle, even as requests grow to use spare state money to deal with crises in Flint and the Detroit Public Schools. "We received assurances that higher education will be a higher than average priority," Daniel Hurley, the CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, told the Free Press. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to announce his budget for 2016-17 on Feb. 10. The association, which lobbies lawmakers on behalf of the public universities, recently published its legislative policy priorities. They center on making universities affordable and improving success for students. The document outlines a number of policy positions — including making sure the universities retain their autonomy to control their campus on issues like how to handle sexual assaults on campuses. The association also wants to get rid of a tuition cap, or restraint, lawmakers have put on the schools in recent years.  

One year after diversity reached an all-time low at Wayne State University’s medical school, the face of the incoming medical student is starting to change. Among the 165 prospective medical school students who have been accepted into the 2016-17 class so far this year, 31 are African-Americans, 18 Hispanic and three Native Americans, according to an email from the medical school dean sent this week to faculty. The university expects the class will grow to 290 students so the figures could increase. In an email to faculty, WSU Medical School Dean Jack Sobel wrote he was concerned by the lack of diversity in this year’s class, especially since the university once led the country with underrepresented minorities among medical students. “Thanks to new leadership, a completely new holistic admissions process, very active community outreach, campaigning and recruitment, we are on our way to correcting this problem,” Sobel wrote, “and, I hope, reclaiming our position as the nation’s leader in educating physicians from underrepresented minorities in medicine.” Other media mentionshttp://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20160128/NEWS/160129820/minority-acceptances-up-643-at-wayne-state-medical-school

A new study is looking at how compulsive hoarding isn’t an activity exclusive to adults. The new analysis, to be conducted by Wayne State University, will focus on hoarding among young people between ages five and 30. Dr. David Rosenberg, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Wayne State’s School of Medicine, is leading the study, which will involve brain scans and genetic studies to better understand the causes and best types of treatment. “So often, 80 percent or more of all cases of compulsive hoarding have their onset and origin in childhood and adolescence,” Rosenberg said. “Tragically, it’s often not diagnosed then.” Researchers are working to diagnose the problem earlier and start treatment before the behavior takes over a young person’s life, leading to things like fractured relationships and job loss as they mature. Rosenberg said the behavior in children and young adults can stem from anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, or even drug or alcohol addiction.       Other media mentionshttp://mms.tveyes.com/Transcript.asp?StationID=2785&DateTime=2%2F1%2F2016+2%3A22%3A16+AM&LineNumber=&MediaStationID=2785&playclip=True&RefPage=

Wayne State University School of Medicine has begun an overhaul of its four-year curriculum that is expected to begin now but take several years to complete, university officials said Friday in an email to faculty and staff. Unlike the vast majority of the nation’s 125 medical schools, Wayne State has not substantially updated its traditional “two plus two” model first recommended by Abraham Flexner early last century. The two plus two model is two years of basic science, followed by two years of clinical education. Nearly 94 percent of medical schools in the U.S. have either changed their curriculum or have been in the planning process the last five years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ curriculum inventory project. Wayne State’s curriculum reform plan could take three to five years to develop and implement, officials said in the memo. The current plan is to make modifications within the current curriculum structure for this year and the 2016-2017 academic year, the memo said.   

An alliance of Michigan's three largest higher education institutions has contributed $17 billion to the state economy, which has reverberated to every region in Michigan, according to the ninth annual Economic Impact Report of the University Research Corridor released Wednesday. The alliance — made up of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — defined the impact as university expenditures on payroll and non-payroll items, spending by students at the three universities and incremental earnings by alumni during 2014 in its 2015 report. The impact was up 35 percent since 2007, when the first report was issued. As a result of the economic impact, the report showed that total direct and indirect jobs was 68,514. The report, created by the East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group, also showed the URC spent $2.1 billion on research and development, a slight decrease from the $2.12 billion from the previous year. But it showed that 19 percent of URC graduates have founded or co-founded 380,000 businesses around the world, with about half of them started in Michigan.  

The Midtown district is one of the safest places in Detroit. According to Wayne State University, major crimes in Midtown have decreased by 52 percent since 2008, significantly outpacing the 18 percent decline citywide over the same period. Chief Anthony Holt, who will soon celebrate his 40th anniversary with the department,. rose through the ranks to become chief in 2008 -- a critical point for the department as it coincided with the launch of Live Midtown, an incentive program designed to encourage employees of Wayne State, Henry Ford Health System, and the Detroit Medical Center, to move to the Midtown district with rental subsidies and forgivable loans towards the purchase of a home. Wayne State police officers, who are commissioned by the Detroit Police Department, have long been responsive to needs beyond the main campus area, but Live Midtown challenged Holt with a broader definition of his department's place and mission. He reorganized the department's resources in a way that may at first seem counter intuitive -- instead of devoting most of his attention to main campus, with about 20 percent of his resources allocated to the perimeter, he focused 80 percent on the perimeter. "You cannot learn, you cannot do anything -- whether it's an educational institution or a business institution -- unless you're safe," he says. "By policing the perimeter, you confront the bad guys before they come in."  

A number of Michigan university researchers are working on efforts to address the water crisis, including some based in Flint. “Research is a labor intensive and an expensive endeavor,” said Shawn McElmurry, a Wayne State University civil and environmental engineering associate professor who will soon lead an independent team looking at the Legionella cases in Flint. “Without the proper resources, we can’t pick up everything and divert our attention to other subjects.” As Flint’s water crisis has deepened, a number of Michigan universities are pursuing research efforts there. Among them: Wayne State University: Gov. Rick Snyder’s office is in discussions with the school about an independent inquiry into the possible association between the increased number of Legionella cases observed in Flint, and changes in the water distribution system.

Melanie West, 63, has had a ringing in her ears as long as she can remember. When she was a kid in the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was a high-pitched sound in both ears that her doctors did not believe existed. “I would go from doctor to doctor explaining, ‘I hear this sound inside of my head, and it won’t let me sleep.’ I was having a hard time concentrating, and they would tell me that I don’t have it,” she says. When West was stressed, or hadn’t had enough sleep, it would get worse and her grades would plummet. Once, the noise made her so tense that she broke a hairbrush she was holding. The trouble with tinnitus—the medical term for ear-ringing—is there’s really no good way to measure a sound that only the patient can hear. Interest in and recognition of the condition has improved in the past couple decades, partly thanks to advances in brain science. But when West, now the CEO and chair of the board of directors of the American Tinnitus Association (ATA), was young, it was less understood. Over time, she adapted. She read a lot of psychology books and says those helped. She started to manage a pretty good quality of life, until she got in a car accident in 2008. Another vehicle rear-ended hers at about 55 miles per hour, and something about this event changed the sound considerably. It got louder—about twice as loud, she says—and fuller, and made more of a “shh” sound. The noise is now louder in her right ear than her left, “so they’re not the same, and even that becomes a little irritating,” she says. After the accident, “I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to eat. It just affects every single part of your life.” Talking with doctors, once again, was frustrating. She describes visiting otolaryngologists—ear, nose, and throat doctors—and “literally, I sat in the parking lot, crying, because they would simply look at you and say ‘There's nothing we can do for you,’” she says. “‘Go home and learn to live with it’—I have heard that so many times in my life.”

A part-time student's modest project offering assistance to Flint residents over the water crisis has far exceeded her expectations, helping her raise thousands of dollars more than her goal. Carrie Davis, 29, set up a GoFundMe page about a month ago, where her friends could send her money to buy water for Flint residents whose water is unusable because it is contaminated with lead. It was an informal project and a way for the Wayne State University student's friends who couldn't bring water to the Michigan city themselves to donate money. She set a modest goal of raising $100. As of Wednesday morning, she had raised over $16,000 -- more than 100 times her initial goal.  

Shakespeare’s coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA will exhibit a rare copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the collection of his plays published seven years after his death. The show, “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare,” will be on display March 7 - April 3. Organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, the traveling exhibition — which will hit all 50 states — honors the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The museum will host the show in collaboration with Wayne State University, which is sponsoring an academic conference and gala event, as well as the Detroit Public Library, which will exhibit second and fourth folio editions from their collection.