Wayne State University's School of Social Work (SSW) has received a three-year, $340,197 contract from the Michigan Department of Human Services to provide youth transitioning out of foster care with the educational, material and social resources they need to thrive as WSU students. The award will help the SSW spearhead a Wayne State Foster Youth Access and Retention Program to give 25 undergraduate-enrolled foster youth reliable housing and transportation, a social support system, physical and mental health services, financial aid, life skills, mentoring, and training for post-university employment. (print edition only)

A substantial financial gift made by a Clinton Township woman to the Wayne State University School of Medicine will create an endowment to promote research in the prevention and treatment of ovarian cancer. The $1 million commitment by Cheryl McKee will establish the Dorothy Ann McKee Endowed Fund for Ovarian Cancer Research, Prevention and Treatment at the School of Medicine. "This gift means so much to medical research," said Valerie M. Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., dean of the WSU School of Medicine. "Cheryl's commitment in honor of her loving sister will in fact become a precious gift to women all over the world. It is a fitting tribute from a woman who spent most of her life caring for others, and one that will live on in that spirit for many years to come."

Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg will always remember his toddler's bravery after she fell ill with leukemia. Diagnosed in 1980, Sara Goldberg would routinely tell her fellow young patients, "Don't cry," her father says. And she would reassure him by saying, "It's okay, Daddy." Sara died at age 2. It's the memory of Sara's courageous battle that drove Goldberg to found Kids Kicking Cancer, a nonprofit dedicated to providing children with cancer and other serious diseases with free lessons in martial arts, breathing techniques and meditation. To date Goldberg, a black belt in Choi Kwon Do who teaches at Wayne State University School of Medicine - has provided free classes to 6,100 children. Since March 2012, Kids Kicking Cancer has also expanded with programs in Israel, London, Ontario, Italy and New York.

More than 370 Wayne State University College of Engineering students and alumni met with representatives from nearly 80 companies at the college's 2012 career fair Thursday. Employers attended the career fair to meet the current crop of engineering and computer science students and alumni at WSU, and recruit them for internships, co-ops and employment opportunities. "We are firmly committed to our strong ties with our industrial partners, and we are thrilled at the huge turnout of companies interested in hiring our students and alumni," said Darin Ellis, associate dean of academic affairs and student services in the College of Engineering. "It shows that industry values a Wayne State engineering education. They know that WSU grads have the skills and strong ties to our geographic area that combine for a significant positive economic impact on the region."

Young boys who discontinue treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are featured in a new study that many experts say highlights the importance of proper and continued treatment. An average of 9 percent of children ages 4 to 17 are diagnosed with ADHD each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Considered one of the most common childhood disorders, the condition is defined by over-activity, and difficulty focusing and controlling impulsive behaviors. Stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Strattera, are considered among many physicians the most effective treatment for ADHD. "Not everyone needs medication, but when a good assessment is done, these medications are among the safest, not just in psychiatry, but all of medication," said Dr. David Rosenberg, professor of psychiatry at Wayne State University.

Blackstone LaunchPad programs at Wayne State University and Walsh College have helped students and alumni launch or significantly grow 105 local business ventures since opening their doors two years ago. Campus programs began in September 2010 with a $2 million grant from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. The grant enabled the two Michigan colleges to support entrepreneurship by opening the first ever Blackstone LaunchPad programs. At Wayne State, 380 students have signed up to participate in the two-year-old program and 60 ventures have launched or significantly grown. "Blackstone LaunchPad guides our students as they travel their entrepreneurial road to success through the development of solid business plans, designed to withstand the uncertainty of an ever-changing economy," said Wayne State University LaunchPad executive director William H. Volz, professor of business law and ethics.

The North American Labor History Conference is being held at Wayne State University Oct. 18-20, a three-day event that will feature, among other activities, all sorts of panels such as "Detroit Workers From the '20s to the '70's" and "Labor and Politics in the Caribbean." The theme of this year's conference is "Insurgency & Resistance." WSU history professor Fran Shor, who's coordinating the conference, is excited about the fact that so many labor activists will be on hand, exchanging ideas with authors and academicians. "In the United States and across the world, in Europe and North Africa, we are seeing a real upsurge of labor activism, and of protest in general" as governments attempt to impose austerity measures, and 30 years' worth of "neo-liberal economic policies" collapse around us. Shor also was a guest on WDTW's "Tony Trupiano Show" talking about the conference.

Wayne State University will celebrate the groundbreaking for the Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research Building (MBRB) at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at 6187 Woodward Avenue. The MBRB will be the university's newest research facility and its largest-ever construction project. The building will encourage interdisciplinary work across a range of scientific areas with the goal of translating new discoveries to improve human health and society. "The MBRB is about everything we want to be as a research university, with key strengths in the health sciences and a commitment to the community," said Wayne State University President Allan Gilmour. "It's about discovery, it's about teaching, and it's about economic growth." A $93 million project, the building will feature nearly 200,000 square feet of space for about 500 researchers and staff and 68 principal investigators. "Over the years, we are fortunate to have had alumni and friends who contributed to the university's most ambitious projects," Gilmour said. "As we build the MBRB, we will look to our supporters to embrace our vision for the future as a major research institution dedicated to improving human health through innovative scientific discovery." A rendering of the facility is included.

Wayne State University later this month will celebrate the involvement of a team of its physicists in what is believed to have been the discovery of the holy grail of physics -- the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle" -- at the CERN laboratory for particle physics in Switzerland. Paul Karchin and Robert Harr, professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, headed up the WSU team, which had members working at CERN, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois and on the WSU campus. Thousands of scientists have researched the particle. The event is at 4 p.m. Oct. 25 at the McGregor Memorial Conference Center.

Twenty-one universities and institutions in the United States and Canada are developing plans for long-term research projects to help protect and restore the Great Lakes, project officials announced Monday. The collaboration will begin with papers describing factors that have affected the lakes over the last 50 years and those expected to have an effect in the next 50 years, such as invasive species and climate change. Wayne State University is among the U.S. institutions providing funding for the research.

Wayne State University's Bonstelle Theatre announces the addition of Arabian Nights to replace Playboy of the West Indies in its 2012-2013 season, running for a limited engagement from Feb. 8-17, 2013. Mary Zimmerman, the Tony Award-winning director, revitalizes an age-old story of a young maiden who must captivate her husband with spellbinding narratives in order to prevent him from executing her.

Stories of Detroit's emerging comeback often highlight the city's attraction to young hipsters. According to plentiful media reports, well-educated twenty-somethings are streaming into the Motor City to test out new ideas, explore art and music projects, or launch D-I-Y revitalization initiatives. The Detroit Revitalization Fellows Program (DRFP), and several of its fellows, are featured in this article. The new initiative matches the talents of bright, young professionals with local organizations working at the frontlines of reviving Detroit. Twenty-nine fellows with backgrounds in urban planning, economic development, finance, real estate, and related fields, were selected to participate in the program. DRFP - a Wayne State project financially supported by the Kresge Foundation, Ford Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, Skillman Foundation, and the University - placed fellows at organizations identified as being "actively engaged in building the Detroit of tomorrow."

Wayne State University School of Medicine researchers may have discovered why people exposed to war are at increased risk to develop chronic problems like heart disease years later. "It's a known fact that the more exposure to violence you have, the more likely you are to report post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression, and the worse your self-rated health is, the more likely your actual health will suffer in five to 10 years," said Dr. Bengt Arnetz, School of Medicine professor of occupational and environmental health, deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at Wayne State, and the study's principal investigator and first author. Dr. Hikmet Jamil, professor of occupational and environmental health in WSU's School of Medicine, and Thomas Templin, research professor in WSU's College of Nursing, also contributed to the research. The multidisciplinary study brought together mental health research, sleep research and chronic disease research, Arnetz said. To further test their ideas, the researchers plan to apply for funding from the National Institutes of Health to collaborate with Dr. Safwan Badr, professor and chief of the School of Medicine's Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, and Thomas Roth, director of the Henry Ford Sleep Disorders and Research Center.

Whether it's showing followers what college really has to offer or taking complaints about snowy, unshoveled parking lots, Michigan's colleges and universities are quickly becoming very active in social media, including hiring staffers dedicated to promoting the schools and talking to followers. The universities -- both public and private -- are active on a number of networks. The main three are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But they also have presences on a variety of other sites, including Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, Pinterest and others. At Wayne State University, staffers flag tweets in which the school is mentioned and sort them, passing on questions and complaints to various university departments to be handled, said Jennifer Di Sano, Web content administrator. They rate the tweets with happy faces or sad faces and group the common topics together so they can quickly see what people are thinking about a given issue. "It's a way for us to help make the administration aware of what students are talking about, she said."

The computer-operated mechanical man in the movie "Frank and the Robot" is a far cry from robots that will be discussed in a meeting being put together next week by Fred Pearson. The personable robot in the movie, who takes care of an aging man, is far different from the "killer robots" to be discussed at 1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15, in a presentation sponsored by Wayne State University's Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, of which Pearson is the director. Paul J. Springer will discuss autonomous weapons and how the United States has reached the point where robotic systems can perform some key tasks that previously required direct human involvement. A full range of topics regarding drones will be on the table in Springer's talk, "The Deadly Profusion of Military Robots," Pearson said.

Four regional leaders who have made unique and lasting contributions to southeast Michigan were given standing ovations Thursday before almost 400 people in the sixth annual Shining Light Regional Cooperation Awards. The Free Press and the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition (MAC) presented leadership awards to Allan Gilmour, president of Wayne State University; Donnell White, executive director of the Detroit Branch NAACP; Larry Alexander, president and CEO of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, and Kathleen Hatke Aro, president of the Accounting Aid Society. "Our fortunes are intertwined," said MAC Chairwoman Debbie Dingell, who introduced the award winners along with Stephen Henderson, Free Press editorial page editor. "And our mutual success depends on a common vision -- a vision of quality of life and pride in this community we call home." Gilmour, 78, won the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership. Gilmour had retired as a vice chairman of Ford after decades of community service -- and then un-retired almost two years ago to take the reins at WSU. Dingell lauded him for "deep knowledge, keen wit, capacity for hard work and ability to bring people together. So many of our institutions are stronger thanks to his guidance and counsel." A photo gallery is included.

The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute stands to be a big loser under health care reform -- $40 million over 10 years -- and it's for a non-intuitive reason: It doesn't provide uncompensated care. Because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires most people not covered by Medicare or Medicaid to have health care coverage, the increase in private insurance payments and expansion of Medicaid is expected to offset impending Medicare reimbursement cuts for general-patient hospitals. Not so for Karmanos, which stands to see its $4 million annual profit from 2011 wiped out by an estimated $4 million in reimbursement reductions expected to begin in January, said CEO Gerold Bepler, M.D. "We don't have uninsured patients because the 25 percent who walk into the door" are almost all eligible for Medicaid because they have cancer and are poor or disabled, Bepler said. The rest of Karmanos' payer mix is 28 percent Medicare with the remainder commercial insurance and private pay, Bepler said. On Karmanos' staff are academic physicians affiliated with Wayne State University School of Medicine and employed by its University Physician Group. Karmanos has about 176 active staff physicians and another 209 consulting physicians on its medical staff, said Bepler, also the medical school's associate dean for cancer services.

Simon Ng, Wayne State University professor of chemical engineering and director of WSU's Alternative Energy Technology, writes a letter-to-the-editor in support of Proposal 3. Ng writes: "Proposal 3 will accelerate the process by spurring new investments and creating thousands of jobs. According to researchers at Michigan State University, this proposal will create 94,000 jobs and bring $10 billion in new investments to the state. Detroit, with its hub of energy and manufacturing expertise, is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these opportunities. This November, vote yes on Proposal 3 to create jobs and drive Michigan's economy forward."

More than 375 regional leaders are gathering in Dearborn today to honor four people for their contributions to southeast Michigan. The 2012 Shining Light Regional Cooperation Awards are being presented today to the president of Wayne State University, the executive director of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, the head of the region's visitor's bureau and a local accountant who helps needy families. The awards are presented by the Detroit Free Press and the Metropolitan Affairs Coalition. Wayne State University President Allan Gilmour is the recipient of The Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, for decades of community service and stepping into the breach when WSU was looking for new leadership. A video of President Gilmour is featured.

The Wayne State University College of Nursing is part of a $1.5 million grant awarded to the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) by the United States Health Resources and Services Administration to develop an Advanced Practice Nurse Leader primary care model for overweight and obese patients. The three-year project is designed to improve health outcomes for this population in two medically underserved areas in Michigan - Detroit and Grand Rapids. The MDCH, the Wayne State University College of Nursing, Grand Valley State University's Office of the Vice Provost for Health and Kirkhof College of Nursing, the Michigan Area Health Education Center, and the Michigan Health Council will partner to develop a team-based approach to care for obese children, students and adults. This will take place at two university-affiliated nurse-managed primary care clinics, the Wayne State University Campus Health Center and the Grand Valley State University Family Health Center.