Filmmaker Heidi Ewing is guardedly optimistic about what she's seeing in post-"Detropia" Detroit. "There are probably 25 restaurants and bars now that were not there when I was making 'Detropia.' There was no Whole Foods then. There was no above-ground rail system being built. There were a lot fewer bodies in the evenings out and about on the streets," says Ewing, who'll be speaking Thursday night at a free event on Wayne State University's campus. Ewing will talk about her film career, show clips of her work and take questions from the audience at Thursday night's special presentation at the Community Arts Auditorium. It's being held by Wayne State's Department of Communication. As a media artist-in-residence and the fall 2015 holder of the Bob Allison (Allesee) Endowed Chair in Media, Ewing has been leading a seminar at the college on interviewing documentary subjects.

In her latest book, "Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline," art historian and Wayne State University professor Dora Apel explores the portrayal of Detroit in the mass media, specifically the images that have come to be known as "ruin porn." What drives the fascination behind these images, and what do they say (or don't say) about Detroit? Detroit Metro Times writer Lee DeVito spoke with Apel in advance of her upcoming book talk at MOCAD. "My argument is first of all, insiders and outsiders tend to take similar kinds of imagery. So who has the right to take those images does not seem to me to be the crucial question, because everybody wants to shoot the ruins. The more interesting question is why are the ruins so fascinating, and what cultural work do the ruin photos do? That's really what I wanted to explore in the book," Apel said.

This feature story examines Wayne State University's Body Bequest Program which receives 250 to 300 bodies annually for teaching purposes for medical students, research in areas such as bioengineering, and doctors and surgeons researching new techniques and developing new procedures. In 1968, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws passed the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, allowing a person to make an anatomical gift at the time of death of all or part of the body for medical education, scientific research, or organ transplantation. In effect, the act standardized and streamlined the body donation process. Prior to the act, Wayne State, like other schools, had already been collecting bodies for scientific purposes, but the university wasn't able to rely on donations. "They were getting bodies - mostly unclaimed - from area hospitals," says Barb Rosso-Norgan, director of Wayne State's Body Bequest Program. "But they didn't need a lot of bodies because they didn't have a lot of medical students." That may have been the case in the school's early years, but in the past 50 years, enrollment in Wayne State's School of Medicine has grown - now approximately 300 students each year.

Wayne State University is dedicating the historic Hecker House as the new Tierney Alumni House. A dedication ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the building on Woodward Avenue in Detroit. Thomas T. Tierney and Elizabeth Carr Tierney gave $2 million to help preserve the home. Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson says the house "is a celebrated landmark, rooted in Detroit's culture for more than 120 years." Wayne State purchased Hecker House from a Detroit-based law firm for $2.3 million in 2014. The Tierneys' gift will create a $1 million endowment to ensure the house is preserved and maintained for generations. An additional $1 million will support future programming. The building will house staff from the Alumni Association, Annual Giving and the HIGH Program, as well as emeriti faculty members.

Soon after Thomas Tierney graduated from Wayne State University in 1960 and became an officer in the U.S. Air Force, he left Detroit - and didn't look back. That's until his alma mater came calling. Last year, Wayne State persuaded Tierney, president of Tustin, Calif.-based VitaTech Nutritional Sciences Inc., to attend the inaugural Detroit Homecoming event. This year, Tierney will return to his hometown, as among more than 170 "Detroit expats" who will descend on the Motor City from Wednesday through Friday for the invitation-only Detroit Homecoming. Last year's event attracted about 160. Also this week, the university will dedicate the former Hecker Smiley mansion property on Woodward Avenue to Tierney, thanks to a $2 million gift. The mansion, now owned by Wayne State, has been renamed the Tierney Alumni House. Tierney said the gift "was a direct consequence" of last year's Detroit Homecoming, which brought successful Detroit-area natives back to the city and drummed up more than $230 million in pending direct investment through 30 initiatives. "The abundance of value created for my family and the people around me, from my point of view, started at Wayne State University and in Detroit," Tierney said. "To some degree, there's guilt for my success, and I could not go forward in my life without paying off the debt owed to the university, so that guilt goes away."

The Historical Society of Michigan awarded 16 top honors during its annual State History Conference. The Society presents the State History Awards every year to individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the appreciation, collection, preservation and/or promotion of state and local history. The awards are the highest recognition presented by the Historical Society of Michigan, the state's official historical society and oldest cultural organization. Among the winners are the following Wayne State University recipients. Books: University & Commercial Press: "Asian Americans in Michigan: Voices from the Midwest," Wayne State University Press; Children and Youth, "Great Girls in Michigan History," published by Wayne State University Press. Kristen Chinery, reference archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library at WSU, received the Distinguished Professional Service Award.

What should you be doing before bed to prepare for a good night's sleep? First, you should have the same bedtime and wake time every day of the week. "The vast majority of people need some kind of wind-down routine" to remove tension and prepare for asleep, says M. Safwan Badr, M.D., past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and chief of the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Here are some other smart moves to include in your sleep preparation routine: Power down, choose mindless TV, wash your face, floss, read, make a list, be grateful, pack for a workout and compliment your loved ones

Federal health officials are giving about $6 million to Wayne State University doctors and others seeking a faster, more accurate way to diagnose infants with serious infections. The five-year, $5.76 million National Institutes of Health grant was announced Tuesday. The Detroit university and Children's Hospital of Michigan are working with doctors with The Ohio State University, University of California, Davis, and affiliated medical centers. Prashant Mahajan, M.D., professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine, chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Wayne State University and Children's Hospital of Michigan, is a recipient of the grant award by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. Mahajan and his collaborators will study how febrile infants - babies 2 months or younger who are brought to emergency rooms with invasive bacterial infections - can avoid invasive procedures such as lumbar punctures, overuse of antibiotics and unnecessary hospitalizations through a new, rapid and more accurate testing to be developed by their research team. Properly diagnosing and treating such infants is "one of the most vexing issues in pediatrics," researchers said in a news release. Among their goals: Developing a system that brings diagnoses in a couple of hours instead of up to two days. The team has been evaluating febrile infants for 15 years.

Nearly 100 guests attended the kickoff to Real Times Media and Who's Who Publishing "Titans of Industry: A Wealth & Wisdom Speakers Series" at the Detroit Port Authority. The panel included guest speakers Gwendolyn L. Butler, William F. Pickard, Deborah Owens, Harry Johnson and M. Roy Wilson, M.D., M.S. Panelists spoke to the audience about issues related to gaining wealth for black and people of color. "The more education you have, the more wealth you will have in your lifetime," said Wilson, who serves as president of Wayne State University. "If we don't do something about the education disparity then we can expect there is nothing that will be done regarding the wealth disparity that plague people of color." Nearly all of the panelists pointed to education as one of the primary pillars of long term wealth.

Researchers at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Michigan are embarking on a second collaborative study with universities in Michigan and Canada to explore over five years the role of family genes in the brain function of children with mental health disorders like obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, anxiety, Tourette's syndrome and depression. WSU neuroimaging experts and psychiatrists in collaboration with researchers at the University of Michigan and University of Toronto will use through 2020 a $3,416,065 competitively renewed grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to lead ongoing studies of the brain networks of children and adolescents, potentially leading to changes in how pediatric mental health disorders are understood, diagnosed and treated. WSU will again serve as the lead coordinating center for the project. "This combined brain imaging and genetics grant extends the work we have done in obsessive compulsive disorders to other conditions with obsessive behaviors, including autism spectrum disorders, depression, non-OCD anxiety and tic disorders," said study principal investigator David Rosenberg, M.D., professor and chair of the WSU Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and the Children's Hospital of Michigan Miriam L. Hamburger Endowed Chair of Child Psychiatry.

Wayne State's GO-GIRL program is featured during a "Live in the D" segment. GO-GIRL, which stands for "Gaining Options Girls Investigating Real Life," focuses on increasing the competence and confidence of adolescent girls in the areas of mathematics, technology, scientific thinking, and communication by engaging them in experiences that promote an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and build their capacity to pursue STEM related careers. The four-day program, designed for middle school girls, provides opportunities for them to work with college mentors exploring social science research.

Prashant Mahajan, M.D., professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine, chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Wayne State University and Children's Hospital of Michigan, has been awarded a five-year, $5.76 million grant by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. Mahajan and his collaborators will study how febrile infants - babies 2 months or younger who are brought to emergency rooms with invasive bacterial infections - can avoid invasive procedures such as lumbar punctures, overuse of antibiotics and unnecessary hospitalizations through a new, rapid and more accurate testing to be developed by their research team. "This award will aid in the development of a potentially paradigm-shifting approach of a new, more precise, efficient and rapid laboratory diagnostic strategies," Mahajan said. This would allow for a less-invasive, quicker and more accurate cost-effective evaluation of young febrile infants while bringing this exciting technology to patient's bedside. If successful, it will substantially impact the care of thousands of febrile infants across the world."

Detroit's colleges and universities have a number of programs to help prepare their students for the workforce. Andrew Feig, associate dean of the Graduate School and professor in the Chemistry Department at Wayne State University, is on the steering committee for two such programs. Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) is a National Institutes of Health-funded program designed to provide experiential service to doctoral students. Feig says the program places students with local companies for internships in order to show students that a Ph.D. in the biomedical sciences provides more options than becoming a professor. Another program, also funded by the National Institutes of Health, focuses on better preparing undergraduate students for biomedical careers. Research Enhancement for Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (REBUILD) is a partnership between Marygrove College, University of Detroit Mercy, Wayne County Community College District and Wayne State University. Catering to an under-represented and economically disadvantaged college population, REBUILD teaches science through actual "new science," not just canned laboratory assignments. For example, students have worked with local urban farms to study the effects of fertilizer and design best practices for future use. It's an especially great opportunity for students of the smaller schools involved that wouldn't otherwise have access to the advanced research laboratories of WSU. "Ultimately, the goal is for students to be successful in whatever it is they want to do," says Feig. "If they know the content matter of chemistry but not how to apply it to societal needs, that person might not do well in the workforce."

The Center for Latino and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) at Wayne State University celebrated the 44th anniversary of its founding as Latino en Marcha, and long history as Chicano-Boricua Studies, by honoring three women for their lifetime achievements. Cultural and education activists Marta Lagos, Gloria Rocha and WSU Professor Jorgelina Corbatta were formally recognized at the CLLAS Gala Dinner on Sept. 12 at the Student Center Building. The Gala initiated the university's celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson announced that CLLAS has been transferred from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to the Office of the Provost. He told the capacity crowd that the program was an important part of the diversity environment at Wayne State. A photo of President Wilson and First Lady Jacqueline Wilson is included. (print edition only)

About 90 Wayne State University students started this school year with a room at the Hotel St. Regis next to the Fisher Building because of a housing crunch on Wayne State's campus. It's a unique situation for Wayne State, which for decades was viewed mainly as a commuter school for kids from the suburbs. Detroit's resurgence has increased students' interest in living on campus and, for the past several years, the school has had a waiting list for its dorms going into the summer. By July, the university still had hundreds of students on the wait list to get into a dorm room. Officials contacted students to see who could commute and who was living outside of driving range and who would need spots. Then they converted the lounges on the floors of each residence halls into bedrooms, but they still needed more room. So they rented two floors at the St. Regis near the General Motors Building, now called the Cadillac Center. "We expect living in the hotel not to be a detriment," said Wayne State chief housing officer Timothy Michael. "We've worked hard to make sure they are still connected to campus." Wayne State officials believe all the students will be out of the hotel by the end of September. The university's location is drawing the students to campus, Michael said. Many students want to live -- or try living -- in an urban environment, and living on campus lets them do so safely. There's also easy access to Midtown and downtown Detroit. "It's really becoming an attraction for students," he said.

WDET's Amy Miller talked with Dr. David Rosenberg, professor and chair of behavioral neurosciences at Wayne State University, about hoarding in childhood. Eighty percent of all hoarding cases have an early onset in childhood, and the behavior rarely occurs alone. "It typically happens with depression, with OCD, with bipolar disorder," Rosenberg said. A hoarder can be incredibly organized, even with a collection of detritus. "What happens though, is that if the hoarding is not corrected, is that it breaks through those organization skills, and chaos reigns." Hoarding sneaks up on someone unexpectedly, added Rosenberg, developing over time. "It's a myth that one morning you wake up and your child has a room full of hoarded items… it sneaks up both on the families and the child." Peak age for hoarding is around college, with the symptoms first occurring around the age of 14.

Wayne State University's Center for Peace and Conflict Studies will host a lecture by Japanese Consul General Mitsuhiro Wada titled "Discovering Japan in the 21st Century: Reconciliation with the Past Project," Thursday, Sept. 24. The talk will take place in the Community Room located at the David Adamany Undergraduate Library. The event, commemorating the 70th anniversary of peace, is the start of a year-long program offered by the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, and sponsored by the United States-Japan Foundation, to bring Detroit area teachers to Japan in order to develop new global curriculum for their classrooms. The event is free and open to the public.

Ryan Kilgore, a Wayne State University physical therapy student was working out at an apartment gym in Northville Monday evening, when he heard a commotion from the nearby pool - a father panicking that his three-year-old boy was drowning. "Somehow the three-year-old wiggled out of his flotation device," Northville Township Fire Chief Rich Marinucci said. "The father was in shock, asking what to do, what to do," Kilgore said. He told the father to lay the child down and Kilgore started CPR, his first time performing it since he was trained a few months ago. He performed three rounds for about four minutes. As the boy finally regained consciousness, firefighters and paramedics arrived to give him further treatment and rush him to the hospital. Chief Marinucci said the boy was discharged from the hospital - fully recovered. He credited Kilgore's quick actions for the positive outcome.

For Rick and Judy Rutan, there's a reminder every day of a loss that sits heavy in their hearts. Wednesday, Sept. 16, marks the 10-year anniversary of their daughter Lara's death. The 25-year-old was killed by a drunken driver. Lara Rutan earned a Master of Science degree in physician assistant studies from Wayne State University, where she was class president. The Lara M. Rutan Endowed Scholarship at Wayne State was established and the Rutans have awarded members of the physicians assistant studies program each year since 2009. "We will be expanding the scholarship because the support has been wonderful," Rick Rutan said. To date, more than 30 physician assistant students have received assistance through the scholarship.

Wayne State University is improving and growing in nearly every measurement, but it can't let up now, its president said Tuesday morning. That includes enrollment, where 2,565 freshmen make up this year's class, a 16.9 percent increase over last year. Retention is at the highest level in the past 16 years. Funding for research is up $20 million over last year. "Let's keep the momentum growing," Wayne State President M. Roy Wilson said as he gave his third state of the university speech. "Our vision is to be a preeminent urban, research university." He said after Wayne State becomes "a" preeminent urban research university, he intends for it to become "the" preeminent research university. The university's new strategic plan calls for enrollment to climb to 30,000 students. In the fall of 2014, Wayne State had 27,578 students. That means to meet the growth goal, the enrollment would have to increase by 8 percent. The strategic plan calls for the six-year graduation rate to increase to 50 percent. It's currently at 32 percent, according to federal data. "Every student deserves the opportunity to aspire to and achieve excellence," Wilson said. He said he wants Wayne State to commit to having the processes and classes in place so that if a student does everything right, they can graduate in four years. The plan also calls for the university to increase its research. Wilson told the crowd of administrators, staff and faculty on Tuesday morning he knows there are limitations on resources, but said he wants to focus in on a few areas. According to the strategic plan, that includes urban health issues. "We can be a leader in addressing the nation's urban issues," Wilson said.