Mike Smith, labor historian at Wayne State University, commented in a story about the influence of the United Auto Workers (UAW) over the years. UAW membership dropped significantly from the heyday of the automotive industry decades ago. Members tallied 1.5 million in 1979, but today that number is close to 355,000, one-third of which works in the auto industry, says Smith. The two-tier system in 2007 was "a massive philosophical change for the UAW" and signified the organization was becoming more willing to cooperate with the domestic automakers in order to keep their membership numbers solvent and prevent further labor cuts. "The whole game has changed. The main issue for bargaining now is job security," Smith adds. Marick Masters, director of the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues and Labor@Wayne, also was quoted in the piece. Even when the economy improves, UAW workers should not expect a return to the earlier era when they were guaranteed certain pay and benefit packages and were not necessarily forced to share in the long-term success of the company, says Masters. "What you're going to see is a continuing effort to reward a leaner workforce in a way that doesn't balloon the fixed costs of the company."

Dr. Roberto Romero, chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of the Division of Intramural Research of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was awarded the 2011 John Dingell Hero for Babies Award by the March of Dimes Michigan Chapter. Romero was honored for his work in preterm birth at the Perinatology Research Branch (PRB) including the PREGNANT study, which was conducted collaboratively under a Clinical Trials Agreement between Columbia and the PRB/NICHD/NIH and of which Dr. Romero was the NIH Principal Investigator.

At its Oct. 17 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to appoint Ned Staebler to fill an open four-year term on the local development finance authority board. Staebler took a position starting in the summer of 2011 as vice president of economic development for Wayne State University, after previously serving with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. Staebler currently serves on the city's Housing and Human Services Advisory Board, which was established in 2007 to replace two other bodies.

Dr. Valerie Parisi, dean of Wayne State University's School of Medicine, comments in a story highlighting the 2011 Michigan\'s Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Infant Mortality Summit held Monday in Ann Arbor. According to Parisi, despite all of the research and attention devoted to the matter, the problem has continued to get worse. \"It was almost like we ignored the problem all of these years,\" she said. Parisi said the committee recommended a number of ways to combat pre-term births, which accounts for 70 percent of the state\'s infant mortality rate. She added that premature births cost the U.S. nearly $26 billion per year.

The Michigan Economic Growth Authority board Tuesday approved a $408,647 tax break to support construction of a new five-story medical office building in Detroit to house Wayne State University School of Medicine\'s Department of Psychiatry. The $18 million project on 2.7 acres at 3901 Chrysler Service Drive includes construction of a 62,840-square-foot building and parking lot with 139 spaces. The medical school\'s psychiatry department will be the main tenant and lease space from developer Queen Lillian LLC, according to the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

RetroSense Therapeutics LLC, a Michigan-based company, announced that it has executed its exclusive, worldwide option and signed a license agreement for novel gene-therapy approaches for treating blindness developed at Wayne State University's School of Medicine. Zhuo-Hua Pan, professor of anatomy and cell biology in the School of Medicine, along with colleagues at Salus University in Pennsylvania, developed the breakthrough therapy and follow-on approaches that offer promise to people suffering with incurable blindness caused by age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa - retinal degenerative disorders that are currently incurable. "This license agreement with RetroSense is an exciting example of how critical research is to making discoveries, then getting those discoveries to the market," said Hilary Ratner, vice president for research at Wayne State University.

An article highlights the work of Wayne State University anthropology students and faculty who are donating space and time to help save Pontiac's Oak Hill Cemetery. Teddi Setzer, a physical anthropologist and lecturer, volunteered to assist with removing the bodies after The Oakland Press contacted the university's Department of Anthropology seeking assistance. The remains will be properly sorted through and housed at Wayne State University until the sites are properly secured. Records from the cemetery offices will assist in identifying the people in the disturbed crypts. Photos and video are included.

The former and current managing partners of CPA and business advisory firm Plante Moran have released "Succession Transition: A Roadmap for Seamless Transitions," a book that offers an inside view of strategies to cultivate staff members into leadership positions. The book includes a foreword from Wayne State University President and former Ford Motor Co. CFO Allan Gilmour.

Wayne State University faculty are collaborating on a federally funded effort to minimize health disparities nationwide by increasing the number of local high school girls, particularly those of color, who enter college prepared to study health-related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Leading that effort is Sally K. Roberts, assistant professor of mathematics education in Wayne State\'s College of Education, who recently received a $1.7 million, five-year grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health. She is planning a three-pronged approach that aims to increase the interest of metropolitan Detroit area girls in health-related STEM disciplines. Roberts, faculty adviser for WSU\'s Gaining Options-Girls Investigate Real Life (GO-GIRL) program, has developed an intervention that will draw seventh-grade participants from that initiative. Organizers say GO-GIRL, originally funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation, has enriched the academic experiences of more than 600 adolescent girls since the first class completed the program in 2002.

An article highlighting Mohammed Arsiwala, an internist on the board of the Michigan State Medical Society who has been mentoring high school students for more than 10 years, notes that the doctor has a chance to expand his health care mentoring program sixfold through the Michigan Area Health Education Center intended to encourage underprivileged K-12 students to go into medicine. In 2010, Wayne State University received a two-year, $900,000 grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to develop the first of two training centers in Detroit and central Michigan. Three other regional centers will be developed to cover the state\'s 82 counties.

The University of Liberia (UL) Thursday received a donation of several text books from Wayne State University valued over $50,000. According to Irvin D. Reid, president emeritus at Wayne State University, the books were donated by students, faculty and staff at the university. He said a team of researchers from Wayne State are currently in Liberia for the purpose of studying African democracy.

Wayne State University\'s Law School will hold a grand opening Wednesday for the new Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Its namesake, Judge Keith, serves on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and is a graduate of the law school. \"By developing programs and opportunities that promote his vision of equality and justice under the law for all people, the Keith Center will advance learning at Wayne Law, encourage community engagement, and promote civil rights in one of the most culturally rich and diverse cities in the United States,\" the school said in a news release. Professor Peter Hammer, director of the Keith Center, said the facility will be a major contributor to civil rights education and will have programs of scholarly legal study, community outreach, public interest law and lectures by prominent civil rights leaders. \"Judge Keith is truly an icon in the historic march toward equality and justice for all in this country,\" Hammer said. \"We are fortunate to have his wisdom and experience to guide us.\" National and local dignitaries will attend the 10 a.m. grand opening. RSVP information is provided.

Jocelyn Benson, associate director of the Damon Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University's School of Law, comments in a feature story about Anita Hill, professor and senior adviser to the provost at Brandeis University, who 20 years ago, testified that then- Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harrassed her. She has just released a new book titled "Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home." "Her standing up was a powerful step forward in improving the way sexual harassment was discussed and dealt with in the workplace,\" said Benson.

A new nonprofit wants to transform Detroit\'s logistics assets into an inland port linked by rail to the deepwater facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take advantage of the newest generation of massive cargo ships. Organizers of the Great Lakes Global Freight Gateway say Halifax is one of just two ports on the East Coast -- the other is Newport, Va. -- that can handle the \"Ultra Post-Panamax\" container ships that will ply the seas by 2014. The group believes it can convince logistics providers, maritime operators and manufacturers that it\'s cheaper and faster to ship goods to the Midwest through the Detroit-Halifax link. \"In the end, they all want the lowest price,\" said Michael Belzer, an economics professor at Wayne State University and CEO of Great Lakes Global Freight Gateway. \"Detroit has never sold itself as an inland port before. It has all the assets.\"

ýFormer Vice President Al Gore brought his message on the \"climate crisis\" Thursday to a crowd of more than 500 at Wayne State University. Gore drew parallels between the regional fight to restore the health of the Great Lakes to the global efforts to deal with climate change. Gore\'s appearance at the university coincides with the events of Great Lakes Week - a four-day gathering in Detroit of environmental groups from around the region. The week\'s events include meetings of the International Joint Commission and the Great Lakes Commission.

Former Vice President Al Gore linked climate change to a rash of environmental catastrophes Thursday, from floods in Pakistan to drought in Texas and rampant algae blooms sucking oxygen from Lake Erie. The fallout from a warming planet is being felt around the world, Gore said in a speech at Wayne State University during the annual meeting of the International Joint Commission. Things will get worse unless people reject a campaign of denial orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry and make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

Six toxic areas in Michigan, including the St. Clair River, will get special attention from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for funding to finish long-term cleanups there in the next two years. The six are among nine areas that will get funding, Lisa Jackson, administrator of the agency, said yesterday at Wayne State University. Jackson\'s appearance at Wayne State coincides with the events of Great Lakes Week - a gathering in Detroit of environmental groups from around the region. The week\'s events include meetings of the International Joint Commission and the Great Lakes Commission.

Former Vice President Al Gore's appearance at Wayne State University's Community Arts Auditorium today was noted. Gore will be speaking at 1:15 p.m. as part of the Great Lakes Week conference.

A Michigan company developing a treatment to help restore vision in patients with retinal degeneration hopes to have its lead candidate in clinical trials in 2012. RetroSense Therapeutics is targeting patients with blindness from retinal pigmentosa and advanced dry age-related macular degeneration for its new therapy derived from genes in blue-green algae. RetroSense's approach was pioneered Dr. Zhuo-Hua Pan at Wayne State University and Dr. Alex Dizhoor at Salus University, and was spun off into RetroSense in 2009. So far, the technology has shown improved light sensitivity in tests on small animals.

Linda Beale, a Wayne State University law professor who blogs about tax policy, commented in an article examining the push for a repatriation tax holiday -- a huge, temporary reduction in the tax rate on money brought back to the U.S. from offshore tax havens. \"This is one of those things where if you\'re on the side supporting a repatriation tax holiday, that means that you\'re supporting a corporatist agenda that redistributes money upward to the rich,\" she said. \"There\'s no two ways about it.\"