Kathlene Rogers, a senior in Wayne State University's mortuary science program, joined "Stateside" host Cynthia Canty to discuss mortuary science, her career path and the growing funeral industry. (cue to 20:30)

General Motors EcoCar competition pits engineering students from different universities all over the country against each other in a competition to see who can build the best fuel-friendly vehicle. GM provides each participating team with an identical donor vehicle, which will serve as the basis for their innovative eco-conscious car. Wayne State University EcoCar3 team, called the 'Hybrid Warriors' is female-led, with students of different academic backgrounds all contributing to the project. Team leader Alyse Ariel Waldhorn, an environmental science major pursuing an undergrad in mechanical engineering, told Glamour magazine the project helps students understand where the direction they want to take their careers.

The next generation of lawyers will get to test their skills this weekend at a regional round of the National Trial Competition held at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse. Wayne Law is the host of the competition for 20 teams from 10 law schools in Michigan and Ohio will compete in 36 mock trials. The students are competing through the weekend trying a domestic violence case both as the prosecution, and defense, in a court setting before judges. "It actually puts the students in a real live courtroom and puts them in the shoes of prosecutor or defense attorneys," said Jocelyn Benson, dean of the Wayne State University Law School. The teams of second- and thirds-year law students will compete until two remain, and they will move onto the national competition in Texas in March. This is the first time in 15 years Wayne Law has hosted this competition, which is a great opportunity for both local students and those visiting to experience Detroit and learn from nearly 150 judges and lawyers who are volunteering throughout the weekend.

The Michigan Chronicle recently announced its 2015 Women of Excellence Honorees. Now in its 8th year, the induction ceremony for this year's Women of Excellence will take place on Friday, March 27, 2014 at the MGM Grand Casino Hotel. Among this year's honorees are Jacqueline Wilson, Wayne State University First Lady and director of The HIGH Program; and Camille Walker Banks, executive director, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses/Wayne State University Office of Economic Development.

After years of huffin' and puffin', logging 21 miles by foot to get to and from work, James Robertson can breathe a sigh of relief. He's getting a car: a shiny red, 2015 Ford Taurus. And it's loaded. New wheels aside, he's also getting a new nickname. Robertson is ABC's "Person of the Week." The 56-year-old factory worker will be featured Friday on World News Tonight, along with a college student who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on his behalf, and the man who discovered his story. An ABC crew came to Detroit Thursday and interviewed Robertson, along with 19-year-old Evan Leedy, the Wayne State University student who has raised $300,000-plus on his behalf after reading about Robertson in the Free Press; and banker Blake Pollock, the man who discovered Robertson while driving to work one day and then shared the commuter's story with the Free Press.

Newly released papers offer a look at the feisty spirit of the seemingly mild Rosa Parks, who helped set off one of the seminal events of the civil rights movement, the Montgomery bus boycott. "I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn't take it anymore," Mrs. Parks wrote. The writing was part of thousands of her personal letters, photographs and other items that became accessible to researchers for the first time this week as the Library of Congress opened the largest collection of the civil rights icon's documents. Wayne State University has a smaller collection of Parks's manuscripts, which she gave to the university in 1976, focusing primarily on her work as an activist while living in Detroit.

Billicia Hines, new director of Wayne State University's Black Theatre Program, is featured in the "Newcomers" section of BLAC magazine. She came to the university from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and is the first to land the role since Aku Kadogo left Wayne State in 2010. She says her first move as director was to get her students more involved in the community.

Wayne State University First Lady and HIGH Program Founder Jacqueline Wilson and WSU student Alice Ogadinma, a HIGH Program volunteer, were guests on the latest edition of Comcast Newsmakers Extended. The HIGH (Helping Individuals Go Higher) Program helps financially stressed students at Wayne State University reach their goal to graduate. The program provides resources for students in need, such as housing support, textbooks and other school supplies, clothing, transportation, and child-care assistance. The mission of the program is to ensure that no student abandons their dream of earning a degree solely because of housing or financial challenges.

Bodman PLC and Wayne State University Law School announced a new strategic partnership Jan. 29 at Bodman's offices in Detroit. The partnership will focus on developing new and aspiring attorneys, building ties within the community and supporting the resurgence of business in Detroit. Through the partnership, Bodman attorneys provide their time and talents on a pro-bono basis to mentor students and review the work of student attorneys in the law school's Business and Community Law Clinic. In addition, Bodman attorneys will mentor Wayne Alumni Law Group associates in their development as new attorneys and provide discounted legal services to law group clients who cannot afford full card rate legal services or who are actively working to relocate functions or initiate services in Detroit.

James Robertson says never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined this. It all started with a story in Sunday's Detroit Free Press - and has blossomed into an international phenomenon. What started as a fundraising effort to collect $5,000 for a new car - has turned into nearly $300,000 dollars raised. Donations poured in, all because of the humble factory worker from Detroit and the almost-marathon walk he makes to get to and from his job in Rochester Hills - every single day -Monday through Friday for 10 years. Evan Leedy is a 19-year-old college student at Wayne State University who didn't know James - but knew he wanted to help. He started the GoFundMe account - that went viral. "It just was amazing to me this guy doesn't have a car and he has such a long commute and he walks the whole way," Leedy said. "We had donations from Russia, Australia, Macedonia, Italy, France and the United Kingdom." "It's amazing to see these strangers who've never met James, they've only seen him through these stories. And they're so willing to help."

Wayne State University's Big Data & Business Analytics Group believes that Big Data is the bridge to the next wave of innovation and growth for Southeast Michigan. As part of their broader goal to contribute to the overall health and economic well-being of Detroit, the group will host its second annual Big Data and Business Analytics Symposium, Competing on Analytics, March 10-11, 2015, at Wayne State's McGregor Memorial Conference Center. The group is made up of renowned experts dedicated to solving real-life business problems in collaboration with regional industry. The symposium will focus on pragmatic issues faced while deploying Big Data strategies to drive business success. It will have a special focus on managing and analyzing the data captured through marketing, product development, manufacturing, distribution, sales and service in a global setting.

American and Cuban officials are in talks to begin reopening embassies in each other's country, and allow for direct travel between the two countries. The renewed relations between the United States and Cuba have spurred conversation about what lifting the embargo could look like, particularly for native Cubans living in Cuba and the U.S. Sandra Svoboda and Saeed Khan spoke with guests including Jorge Chinea, a Wayne State University associate professor of history and director of the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies. "Back in the '50s Cuba was in peak economic development... it created friction between the haves and the have-nots," Chinea explained of the political climate in Cuba. "It was a very difficult time for both the United States and Cuba." Chinea says there are many businesses that are interested in expanding and setting up franchises in Cuba once the travel ban is lifted. But he's not sure if that interest will result in a Starbucks and McDonald's on every corner in Havana. "That could well be the case. It is often the case for countries that undergo colonization," says Chinea. "Whether that's good or bad it's hard to say."

These images were taken after the snowfall in Midtown Detroit, at Wayne State University. This is the Yamasaki Garden, by the Art Building on Wayne State University's campus.

Wayne State University could offer a master's degree in big data and business analytics, offered jointly by the College of Engineering and School of Business Administration, by the fall of 2016. It will be unique because of its equal emphasis on both data analytics as well as business, said Ratna Babu Chinnam, a professor and graduate chairman of the engineering school who is leading the 30-credit-hour program's development. It would offer three concentrations: big data engineering, big data analytics and big data business. "The vast majority of the programs either completely focus on the data science piece of it, meaning these programs are coming out of computer science departments, or they tend to come purely from business schools with a lot more emphasis on business," Chinnam said. "We came to the conclusion that's not going to really work. ... The program has to be balanced." Heather Dillaway, associate dean of master's programs for the WSU graduate school and an associate professor in the department of sociology, said the program is in its beginning stages of development and still needs graduate school and Board of Governors approval.

A $21.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health was awarded to the University of Detroit Mercy, Wayne State University, Marygrove College and Wayne County Community College District through a consortium known as the REBUILD Detroit project. Detroit Mercy is the lead college for the grant and will manage the funds. The allocation will be distributed over five years to implement programs that encourage more undergraduate students from underrepresented and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue careers in biomedical sciences, particularly research. The REBUILD Detroit Project was formed to establish Detroit as a center for biomedical research training for underrepresented undergraduate students.

Wayne State's business school will host an investment conference for students, ENGAGE International Investment Education Symposium, March 26-27 at Cobo Center. It is designed to help students learn about effective investment strategies and will include several high-powered speakers including Dennis P. Lockhart, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. WDET's Laura Weber-Davis spoke with Wayne State University School of Business Administration Dean Robert Forsythe about the symposium.

A State of Opportunity report profiles four students, all in different stages along the college path. Wayne State University student Jasaria Dorty is among those featured. Three years ago, she moved from Lansing into a dorm room at WSU, as part of the school's APEX program. She was admitted to the university even though her high school GPA wasn't good enough to get in. APEX offers conditional acceptance for students like Dorty to Wayne State. She now has a little more than a year to go before graduation. Her college GPA is a lot better than her high school GPA and when she's done, she says she wants to get her masters. The report also includes a candid interview with Wayne State APEX Program Director Mark Jackson, who shared his experience working with and mentoring first-generation college students and what it takes for them to graduate.

Legislation has been introduced in the State House that would give a five year tax credit of 50 percent for students with a student loan. The state would forgive that portion if the student agrees to stay in Michigan for 5 years. Also, key lawmakers are promising not to cut the budget for higher education. State Rep. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, says: "We have seen the pain created by the extreme cuts that Governor Snyder made in 2011 and now it's time for us to protect those higher education institutions as we have to make cuts throughout the budget.

MichBio, the association for Michigan's biosciences industry, has launched a statewide effort called the Michigan Bio-Industry Roadmap 2015. The roadmap is a five-year strategic plan for growing Michigan's biosciences industry and is being conducted in partnership with Business Leaders for Michigan and the University Research Corridor. The Michigan Bio-Industry Roadmap 2015 is intended to be an operational "game plan" to enable growth over the next three to five years. The road mapping effort is being overseen by an executive steering committee comprised of bio-industry experts from around Michigan including Ken Massey, venture director at the Wayne State University Office of Technology Commercialization.

With so many local theater companies adopting a less-is-more policy of doing shows that call for just one or two actors and minimal sets, it's a treat to take in Hilberry Theatre's production of "The Way of the World." The Restoration-era comedy by William Congreve, first performed in 1700, offers lavish settings, two intermissions and enough witty banter to fill another three plays. Director Lavinia Hart has a talented ensemble to work with this year, and most of her cast members are up to the task of pulling off the 300-year-old jokes. "The Way of the World," which is given three out of four stars by Free Press theatre critic John Monaghan, is running in repertory through March 7 at the Hilberry Theatre.