A lesbian couple's attempt to change the Michigan Adoption Code could lead to a significant ruling Thursday in the state's gay marriage ban. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, who live with their three young children in Hazel Park, will appear in front of U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman Thursday morning at Wayne State University for arguments in the case, which seeks to overturn the 2004 state constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage. DeBoer, and Rowse began the case as a challenge to the adoption code, which currently allows for only one member of a same-sex couple to be the legal parent of an adopted child. If Friedman declares the amendment unconstitutional, gay couples would immediately be allowed to marry and adopt children.

The Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index fell to 51.7 in February from 55.3 in January, reflecting a drop in new orders. A reading above 50 reflects an expanding economy, and this was the 35th time in the past 36 months that the index has been above that threshold. "The change in the new-orders index is somewhat troubling, because if new orders contract over the long haul, other elements and the index itself will likely show contraction," said Ken Doherty, a member of the Institute for Supply Management-Southeast Michigan and an assistant vice president for procurement and strategic sourcing at Wayne State University. "It's not cause for alarm, just something to keep our eye on."

Wayne State University professors have ratified an eight-year contract, weeks ahead of the effective date of Michigan's new right-to-work law. The law bans mandatory payments from employees to the unions that represent them under collective bargaining agreements. It takes effect March 27. The American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers Local 6075 announced the contract ratification Thursday. The union says the 1,950 employees it represents won't get pay increases this year but will get $1,000 bonuses. It says they'll get 2.75 percent raises next year and 2.5 percent raises in future years. The union didn't release the vote count but says 93 percent of those voting approved the deal. Wayne State's governors also must approve it. The contract replaces one that expired July 31, 2012.

The committee searching for the next president of Wayne State University will be interviewing candidates this month, and whittling down the pool of nearly three dozen applicants interested in leading the state's only urban university. Gary Pollard, chair of the WSU presidential search committee, said Tuesday that the committee is on track to name the university's 12th president by June. "Leadership is very important, someone with great vision," said Pollard who is also a member of the WSU Board of Governors. "We certainly need vision in the state and city of Detroit." Wayne State is searching for a new leader to replace President Allan Gilmour, whose contract will expire in June. The former Ford Motor Co. executive took the job on an interim basis in August 2010, and then agreed to take on the position full time in January 2011. Since advertising began, WSU has received applications from more than 30 people across the nation. Most are from academia, but some are from the private sector, Pollard said. The committee will narrow the candidate pool this month to less than 20 and expects the number of potential candidates to shrink to 10 in April to just a few in May. "We have a great president now and we are looking for another one," WSU spokesman Matt Lockwood said.

Wayne State University has been awarded a second 10-year contract from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to conduct critical and life-saving research on pregnancy and unborn children. The economic impact of the contract, which allows WSU to continue to host and support the Perinatology Research Branch (PRB) of the NICHD, will approach $350 million, according to a 2010 study commissioned by Wayne State. It will also generate hundreds of jobs critical to ongoing public and private efforts to transform Detroit into a vibrant urban center. New earnings to area residents over the life of a contract are expected to total $143 million. The National Institute of Health (NIH) contract is valued at $166 million and is the university's largest research contract. "The research and discoveries developed by the PRB are changing medicine and saving lives around the world," said Valerie M. Parisi, dean of the WSU School of Medicine. "Premature birth and its attending lifelong health problems in Michigan are so severe that Gov. Rick Snyder has made it, along with obesity, one of his administration's two top health priorities. Remaining the home of the PRB ensures that Wayne State University continues to be on the front lines of the battle against pre-term birth." WSU President Allan Gilmour said in a statement, "The renewal of Wayne State's contract is a testament to the confidence the National Institute of Health has in our people and the quality of our university."

Madeline Betterly knows firsthand how technology can impact one's health, lifestyle and future. Born with unilateral aural atresia and microtia of the ear, she received a bone-anchored hearing aid (Baha) implant at age 12 that significantly changed her life. "The Baha greatly improved my ability to hear and interact with my peers," she said. "I have directly benefited from the advances made through biomedical research, and for this I will be forever grateful." Those personal experiences and career goals led Betterly on a path to Wayne State University's Department of Biomedical Engineering. "I'm interested in art, design, technology, engineering and the sciences," said the freshman. "I came to Wayne State because it's known for its biomedical engineering program. The professors are renowned experts, and you have the opportunity to gain a great deal of hands-on experience as an undergraduate student."

A year ago, the American Council on Education's regular survey of college and university presidents found that 58 percent of college and university presidents were 61 years old or older, a finding that signals dramatic turnover in the composition of the upper ranks of higher education leadership. Last year's survey also found that 73 percent of first-time college or university presidents ascended to the presidency from a senior administrative job in higher education such as vice president, dean or department head. Presenters at a panel here Monday said the trends when it comes to racial and ethnic minorities are less promising. Aside from chief diversity officers -- 89 percent of whom are people of color -- racial and ethnic minorities make up at most 17 percent of any given senior administrative role. Only 7 percent of provosts or chief academic officers, still the most common stepping stone to the presidency, are people of color. In addition, institutions seem more reluctant to pull from the administrative ranks. Boards are increasingly likely to look outside university administration to find a new president. Between 2007 and 2012, the percentage of presidents whose previous job was outside academe grew from 17 percent to 23 percent. High-profile recent examples of institutions looking outside academe for a president include the former Ford Motor Company executive Allan D. Gilmour, who became president of Wayne State University in 2011, and the former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who became president of Purdue University in January.

Teddi Setzer, Wayne State University anthropology lecturer, is teaching a class that's doing preservation work at the historic Oak Hill Cemetery this semester. "I saw it as kind of an opportunity to help the city and continue the work," Setzer said. Last fall, she recovered remains from the Pontiac cemetery's Southard family mausoleum, which Setzer said has been disturbed at least three times over the years. "The remains were so commingled, we had to separate them out and sort it so we could put the individuals back where they belong," said the physical anthropologist. The mausoleum at the historic cemetery contained the remains of at least five people, including those of John B. Southard, who died during the Civil War. Hundreds of Civil War veterans are buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, including about 25 who died in combat.

When Michigan's state government - responding to the steady hemorrhage of manufacturing jobs in the 2000s - launched its No Worker Left Behind program, it wanted to channel displaced workers into the knowledge economy. The move, it turned out, is helping drive growth in Detroit's health care sector. Though the metro area's total population dropped 10 percent between 2003 and 2011, jobs in its health care industry surged by 11,400. The number of such jobs per capita in the region soared 24 percent to 62 per 1,000 residents, well above the national average of 54. Detroit is developing TechTown, a research and technology park adjacent to Henry Ford Hospital. It's also banking on economic development coming from spinoffs from Wayne State University's $100 million research building, which is expected to open in 2014. "The university is a huge anchor for downtown Detroit," said Dr. Valerie Parisi, dean of Wayne State's School of Medicine. Many believe the city's renaissance will come from higher education and health care, she said. "It's been dubbed 'eds and meds.' " Parisi noted that the medical school last month captured a National Institutes of Health contract worth $165 million to continue housing the NIH's perinatology research branch. An economic impact study found that the contract will allow the city to retain more than 130 knowledge-based jobs.

Some of Michigan's 15 public universities fare better than others under the state aid funding formula now in place and proposed to continue in Gov. Rick Snyder's plan for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The proposal is now being vetted at the subcommittee level in the Michigan Legislature, including a House hearing on Tuesday. Universities, on average, could get a 2 percent state aid increase under Snyder's proposal introduced last month. About 1.5 percent of the proposed increase would be distributed to universities based on a formula similar to one in place for the current budget year. It varies by the number of undergraduate degrees awarded in critical skills areas, research and development spending, comparisons to peer universities, graduation rates and other factors. Another 0.5 percent would be distributed to universities keeping their in-state undergraduate tuition increases below 4 percent for the next academic year. Not counting the tuition restraint piece, the increases would vary from a high of 5.1 percent at Lake Superior State University to a low of 0.2 percent at Wayne State University.

RetroSense Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing gene therapy approaches to vision restoration, announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for a U.S. patent application, which broadly covers methods of restoring visual responses with a variety of optogenetic compounds. Specifically, the allowed application includes claims covering methods of restoring visual responses by delivering channelrhodopsin and variants thereof, as well as halorhodopsin to retinal neurons, with or without the use of cell-type specific promoters, including mGluR6 (Grm6). The subject opsins have been studied extensively and published on as means of vision restoration in retinal degenerative conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa and dry age-related macular degeneration. The approved patent application is part of the "Pan" patent family, which stems from the novel research of Zhuo-Hua Pan and others at Wayne State University and Salus University, designed to restore vision in retinal degenerative conditions.

Gov. Rick Snyder hasn't yet revealed his pick for Detroit emergency manager, but he's offering some clues into what he's looking for as speculation mounts over who might assume the unprecedented role. Ultimately, whoever is in charge has to find ways to make the quality of life better for residents, said Ronald Brown, an associate professor at Wayne State University. Brown points to a staffer who leaves every day at 4:15 p.m. because she wants to get home before dark, with so many streetlights off throughout the city. "What she wants, it doesn't matter who takes (over the operations) the city. She wants the lights on," said Brown, who teaches African-American politics at WSU. "Ask the common person what they want and it would be what everyone else wants in the region. Buses (running), lights on in their community and a park for their children." Brown added the situation is about solving the complex problems regionally. "What do you do with legacy costs (or) transportation?" Brown said. "You have to meet payroll and (you have) a low tax base. The best case scenario is the governor and the (city) leadership work together."

Clinical psychologist Mark A. Lumley is a professor and director of Clinical Training in the psychology department at Wayne State University. The Novi resident is researching the role of stress and emotions in chronic pain disorders. "I started paying attention to how people's bodies respond to emotional experiences," he said, recalling an experience of getting sick to his stomach after seeing a dialysis film during grade school. He has looked at many medical conditions, based partly on interests of graduate students. They include irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, headaches, and rheumatoid arthritis. Many conditions overlap, Lumley said, and the brain and central nervous system "get disrupted really easily." When Wayne State issued a press release about two years ago on an NIH grant for his work, he got a TV mention from JoAnne Purtan of Channel 7. "Our phone had 200 voicemail messages the next morning," said Lumley, noting a lot of people are in pain and don't have much to help them. A handful of practitioners do work clinically.

Schools in Chelsea and Dexter have received almost $8,000 in grants for Safe Routes to School. The grants are from the Michigan Fitness Foundation and the Michigan Department of Transportation. Wylie Elementary School will receive a $1,921 mini-grant to operate a Walking School Bus program. Prior to the start of the program, an interactive safe streets presentation by Wayne State University's Transportation Research Group will be used to teach students in grades 3-4 how to cross safely and understand traffic signals and the importance of walking in groups for visibility and safety, with a special focus on students who must cross busy Baker Road to get to school.

During his "State of the County" address last night, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano noted that Wayne State University, which has the country's largest single campus medical school, has announced that it will be investing $90 million in a new biomed research facility.

Metro Detroit's Asian-American community faces bullying in schools, barriers to career advancement and high unemployment, according to an assessment that will be delivered to state lawmakers Thursday. Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote-Michigan released the first official needs assessment for Metro Detroit, "Rising Voices, Revealing Truths," Wednesday. The survey was done with the Wayne State University Center for Urban Studies. The report found numerous quality-of-life areas where Asian-Americans lag, even as their numbers have surged in the region.

A feature story focuses on the Wayne State University Police Department (WSUPD) and their presence in the Midtown area. Anthony Holt has been with the force for 35 years, working his way up to WSU's chief of police in 2008. The average 90-second response time put in place before Holt became chief remains the standard. Much has changed, too. The Cass Corridor has been cleaned up and rebranded as "Midtown." The expansion of Wayne State's police force has been a major factor. Today, high-definition cameras actively monitor the department's patrol area, rather than simply recording crimes and pursuing them after they occur. While campus safety remains a primary focus, the force has broadened its scope to patrol and respond to a roughly six-mile area bounded by Lothrop to the north, Mack to the south, 14th Street to the west, and I-75 to the east. Six to eight officers patrol the area at any given time. In Holt's four years as chief, the crime rate has fallen a combined 45 percent in all major-crime categories.

Professor Sally Roberts, of Wayne State University's College of Education, has encouraged middle-school girls to think about STEM careers through a program she calls Gaining Options-Girls Investigate Real Life, or GO-GIRL, which she started 11 years ago. GO-GIRL includes summer academies where participants complete a research project and participate in activities with professionals such as pharmacists and nurses; activities for parents; and mentoring by WSU education undergraduates in person and via social media. "We've grown from a 10-week interventional program to really a suite of activities," says Roberts. GO-GIRLs, who are picked through applications, now number about 4,000 graduates, and represent a broad range of backgrounds from the tri-county, according to Roberts.

Some Republican lawmakers are threatening to limit their state aid and call them into the Capitol for an explanation if Michigan's public universities and K-12 districts consider signing unusually long new contracts before the right-to-work law goes into effect March 28. Until then, employers and unions are free to negotiate contract extensions to delay the impact of right to work. But an eight-year contract nearing approval at Wayne State University - and one already approved at a suburban Detroit school district - are now flash points in the Legislature and courts that could influence similar contract talks elsewhere in the state. Al Pscholka, a Stevensville Republican who chairs the House budget subcommittee that helps decide funding for all 15 public universities, is proposing that no university get a funding increase in the next budget if it signs a contract extension or renewal before March 28 - unless the contract guarantees at least 10 percent savings in labor costs. The GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee wants Wayne State officials to show this week and explain their tentative deal with the faculty union. Democrats counter that public employers, including Wayne State, were already negotiating contracts because their old contracts had expired before Gov. Rick Snyder signed the right-to-work law in December. Some Republicans do not seem as concerned with the new contracts, noting that Wayne State has been without a contract since July.

As much as $78 million more in federal research appropriations could be lost this budget year by the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University, according to recent estimates compiled by those institutions. The three schools and the University of Michigan Health System collectively employ the equivalent of 52,215 full-time faculty members, and 16 percent of their combined budgets is spent on research. The MSU Office of Research and Graduate Studies and the WSU Division of Research were expecting a possible 5 percent to 10 percent federal funding cut because of sequestration. That means MSU could lose up to $27 million of federal funds this fiscal year and Wayne State $10 million. Michigan's 15 public universities receive about $1.9 billion in annual research and development funding from the federal government, but more than 90 percent of that is distributed to the three institutions of the University Research Corridor, said Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.