An article highlighting Farmington Hills-based Sweet Dreamzzz Inc.'s receipt of a $8,600 grant from The UPS Foundation, mentions a partnership with the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research and Monica Tracey, associate professor in Wayne State University's College of Education. Sweet Dreamzzz\'s R.E.M. Sleep Program teaches children the benefits of healthy sleep habits, helps them to establish a healthy bedtime routine and provides them with the bedtime essentials to sleep well.

Wayne State University senior right-handed pitcher Brett Shankin was selected Tuesday evening by the Seattle Mariners in the 28th round of the 2011 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, with the 843rd overall pick.

Wayne State University Professor Emeriti Marion Jackson, James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, talks about her experience working with service learning in the metro Detroit community. She directs ArtsCorpsDetroit and teaches service learning courses on art and community engagement.

Japan\'s Detroit consulate has announced a free concert this month to thank Michigan residents who provided help after a tsunami hit the Pacific island nation March 11. The consulate announced Monday that the White Pine Glee Club will present the concert 2-4 p.m. June 19 at Wayne State University\'s DeRoy Auditorium, designed by Minoru Yamasaki. The concert is called \"Arigato! Michigan\" and will feature both Japanese and western songs, as well as Japanese traditional instruments.

Copyright law is a passion and source of fascination for Aaron Perzanowski, assistant professor at Wayne State University School of Law. It's a rewarding area of teaching and research, in part, because it's in a constant state of change, he says. "Copyright law inevitably struggles to keep pace with evolving technology and creative practice," Perzanowski says. "That means courts are frequently presented with novel questions. That creates a space in which commentators can influence courts, legislators, and industry as they develop law and policy.

An article highlights the experiences of students enrolled in Wayne State Law School's Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic, a student-run clinic that is also a for-credit course. In addition to a classroom component, real cases are handled by student attorneys. The article features students who worked on asylum cases for clients. A photo of the students with their professor and clinic administrator is included.

Jane Fitzgibbon, a full-time lecturer for business communication at Wayne State University, prefers existing outside the tenure system. \"Tenure has outlived its usefulness,\" Fitzgibbon said. \"The good professors will rise to the top without tenure. ... It\'s not a question of students getting value for their money, it\'s about performance.\" Nationally and in Michigan, tenured and tenure-track instructors are on the decline. Institutions increasingly rely on part-time adjuncts and full-time nontenured faculty as budget pressures mount. At the state\'s 15 public universities, the number of tenured and tenure-track instructors dropped to 38.6 percent in 2009 from 43.6 percent in 2001. The Michigan American Federation of Teachers (AFT) said it supports preserving the tenure system at Michigan universities -- even though more nontenured faculty means more prospective union members. It is noted that the Michigan AFT represents nontenured faculty at Wayne State; Eastern Michigan University; UM\'s campuses in Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint; MSU; Western Michigan University; Central Michigan University and Ferris State University. AFT also represents some tenured faculty at WSU and some community colleges.

Henry Ford Health System officials have plans for a center that brings together medical researchers, designers and engineers to create for-profit companies making a wide range of medical products. The new institute will involve collaborations with such academic institutions as Wayne State University, the College for Creative Studies, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the University of Chicago and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain. The Innovation Institute at Henry Ford will be housed in a three-story Albert Kahn building known as the Old Ed Building. Officials envision spinning out companies making such things as robotic surgery tools and diagnostic devices, ergonomic chairs for doctors during long surgeries and better communications systems for waiting rooms. The first corporate partner is Lockheed Martin Corp., which hopes to help the institute win large government grants and forge business relationships among the institute\'s spinoff companies and such private-sector companies as Texas Instruments and GE Healthcare, a business unit of General Electric Co. The project, if funded, would be in partnership with Greg Auner, director of the Smart Sensors and Integrated Microsystems Program in WSU\'s Engineering School. The award is expected to be announced this summer.

In an editorial about the influence of united regions in Michigan - west and east - the "Innovation Institute" and its influence with medical devices is cited. Wayne State University, the Henry Ford Health System and local partners, are behind the institute. Everything from robotic surgery tools to diagnostic devices to ergonomically designed furniture for operating rooms is on the table in the center\'s purview. Partners expect grants from government and corporate sources to fund research and eventual spinouts of for-profit companies to transform research to reality.

The New Economy Initiative of Southeast Michigan has awarded a three-year, $450,000 grant to the University Research Corridor to launch a program to encourage international students to stay in Michigan when they finish their education. The Global Detroit International Student Retention Program, announced Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference, will help students navigate barriers to legal immigration and help recruit employers to give them jobs. The University Research Corridor is a coalition of the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University.

Gov. Rick Snyder and Michigan business executives Thursday unveiled a $3 billion public-private initiative to increase purchasing from Michigan companies, help businesses access additional capital and obtain other assistance. The Pure Michigan Business Connect encompasses new commitments and existing programs and is part of the state\'s \"economic gardening\" drive to help existing Michigan businesses grow and create jobs. The effort includes a $500 million commitment by the state\'s two largest energy companies to buy more goods and services from Michigan-based suppliers. In Midtown, three anchor institutions - Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health System and the Detroit Medical Center -- joined forces to expand spending with Detroit-based businesses.

Soulbrain, formerly TSC Michigan and a subsidiary of Korean chemical conglomerate Techno SemiChem Co. Ltd., began producing the integral chemical for lithium-ion batteries in February. In the battery industry, electrolyte is a liquid that generates power through a chemical reaction in the lithium-ion battery, acting as a conductor for ions to cross between the anode and cathode in the system. Soulbrain is expected to generate $10 million in revenue this year, then double or triple over the next two years, said Allen Ibara, Soulbrain\'s CEO. Soulbrain employs 23, but plans to reach 45 employees by the end of the year -- primarily hiring recent University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University graduates.

A sidebar to a story about the importance of economic clusters to states mentioned Wayne State University's Smart Sensors and Integrated Microsystems program as providing engineering support to a College for Creative Studies (CCS) program. Fifteen CCS students spent 14 weeks as volunteers at Henry Ford Hospital last winter and fall, visiting doctors and nurses and hanging around waiting rooms and operating rooms, looking for medical devices and products that could be improved. Each student came up with a specific design with an eye toward commercialization.

A Detroit agency under investigation for buying furniture with more than $200,000 intended to help low-income people has a long track record of mismanaging tax dollars, hiring incompetent staff and keeping superiors in the dark about misspending, according to internal records and four audits over two years. With little to no oversight, the Detroit Human Services Department (DHSD) has been handling more than $50 million a year in federal money to help Detroiters in need of jobs, transportation, home improvements, education and food. Head Start, an early childhood program under the direction of the DHSD, had to return $7 million to the federal government over the past six years while waiting lists grew and the number of children served dropped. \"Head Start gives kids living in poverty close to the same opportunities of children not living in poverty because it prepares them, not only for reading and math readiness, but for the social and emotional preparedness they will need in kindergarten,\" said Janet Windemuth, a Head Start volunteer and Wayne State University instructor who specializes in urban education of early childhood. \"Children who go to Head Start have higher high school graduation rates, they earn higher wages and have higher success, and there is less teen pregnancy and crime.\"

Organizers of the proposed \"Robot Town\" robotics research consortium and laboratory test center hope to send a formal application this week for a planning grant from the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan. Troy-based software technology and government contracting consultant firm 6 Zulu Inc. has finished writing a seed and planning grant request to the New Economy Initiative with advice from management at TechTown, the Wayne State University technology park and business incubator, said Mark Salamango, project manager and co-organizer of Robot Town at 6 Zulu. The initiative, a nonprofit collaboration of mostly local private foundations that have committed to invest $100 million in local economic development, could make a decision on the $100,000 request before the end of summer.

Michael Wright will add the responsibilities of chief of staff to his role as Wayne State University\'s vice president for marketing and communications. He will report directly to WSU President Allan Gilmour. Wright has managed marketing, public relations, media relations, advertising, publications production and Web activities since he joined Wayne State in July 2007 as associate vice president. He was promoted to vice president in 2010. He holds a bachelor\'s degree in business administration from Eastern Michigan University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Eastern Michigan University is planning budget cuts to meet the reduction in the state's higher education appropriations by eliminating the vast majority of cell phones paid for by the university, laying off 50 employees and getting rid of 70 positions. The university is also asking all employees to give up all contracted pay increases next year. Michigan\'s other public universities are also in cost-cutting mode. They are likely to continue reducing travel costs, looking for energy cost savings and trying to contain health insurance costs in their budgets for next year, which will be approved in a series of meetings later this month. The University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University have not yet outlined their exact cuts.

The Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO) announced it has appointed Dr. Richard Marcolini as its new Medical Director. Marcolini is a Fellow, board certified psychiatrist. He is also board certified in geriatric psychology. He is a graduate of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, an adjunct faculty member at the Michigan School for Professional Psychology and has been an instructor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Departments of Psychiatry and Family Medicine.

A story examining the growth in palliative care and hospice after Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assisted-suicide crusade in the 1990s, includes commentary from Dr. Michael Stellini, assistant professor of medicine and chief of palliative medicine at Wayne State University's School of Medicine. Stellini said patients who in the past may have looked for help in dying now rely more on physicians to help them with their pain. \"But the issue will never go away,\" he added. \"This has been around for thousands of years and what we have made strides in is helping people not feel desperate.\"

An editorial about the Mackinac Conference and Michigan's three University Research Corridor institutions applauds their efforts to work with state businesses in creating high-paying, 21st-century jobs for talented and educated young people. Wayne State University President Allan Gilmour is noted, along with Michigan State's Lou Anna Simon, and the University of Michigan's Mary Sue Coleman, as being behind this effort. "It is a smart and targeted effort to change the conversation about Michigan. That's an important step."