John Mogk, Wayne State University law professor, comments about the Wayne County Nuisance Abatement Program (WCNAP) which targets neglectful owners of abandoned buildings and vacant properties. If an owner refuses to properly maintain a property, lawyers with the WCNAP make the case to a judge that the vacant property is a nuisance and should be handed over to the county. The county then sells it to someone who pledges to fix it. Community groups and neighbors hail the effort as finally spurring stubborn landlords into action, but the experts say the program could set off a property rights debate and is ripe for a challenge. \"It promotes good public policy … but (the county) is operating in an unclear constitutional area,\" Mogk says. \"It\'s kind of on the edge of what may be viewed as a forced transfer.\"

Diane Pawlowski, a research anthropologist at Wayne State's Institute for Information, Culture and Technology, offers a guest column about the cultural and social significance of driving for elderly people. Pawlowski writes that if you don\'t drive, your status drops from worthwhile and independent adult to childish extra baggage. According to the Michigan Secretary of State\'s office, there are 475,033 licensed drivers in the state over age 75 -- the age when crash rates skyrocket. A University of Illinois researcher, David Rosenfield, says that drivers aged 75 and older have a 37% higher crash rate than younger drivers. A photo of Pawlowski is included.

Society columnist Chuck Bennett notes in his column that Wayne State's College of Nursing LifeLine Awards are scheduled on Sept. 21 at the Detroit Athletic Club. Ticket and registration information are provided.

John Trasviña, interim president/general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and a national voice on immigration and civil rights issues, will speak at the Wayne State University School of Law on Thursday, Sept. 21, about "Legal Issues Facing Latinos and America 's Future."

Contractual disputes between the Wayne State University physicians and The Detroit Medical Center have put the medical school's 69 residency programs and both institutions' futures at risk, said Wayne State medical school Dean Robert Mentzer, following a demand for an Oct. 1 update on negotiations from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This is a clear-cut signal that the (accreditation council) is very serious about taking appropriate action if the issue regarding graduate medical education is not resolved in the near future," Mentzer said. "There's no question that depending on what the status of those negotiations are…that will trigger the (council's) next step." DMC President and CEO Mike Duggan said that the council's concern centers on the medical school's defection from the DMC's downtown hospitals. "The medical school has decided that it wants to be suburban-based," he said, referring to the school's June affiliation with Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. and its startup with that system of a Troy-based medical center. "They're bent on pursuing attempts to try and transfer residencies. That's what's causing the gaffe," Duggan added. Not true, Mentzer said. Council concern was piqued after the DMC shut down the orthopedics residency program earlier this year and talks were extended, he said. "We need to have these as part of our comprehensive training programs, so for those services that you do not wish, we'll work to expand with other hospitals as part of the overall outreach to the entire community," he said. Mentzer said that the council will make a decision on the residency programs after a Nov. 14 site visit to Wayne State. "We have to be very cautious with coming to grips with this," he said.

David Bonior, identified as a former U.S. congressman from Michigan, chairman of American Rights at Work and a professor of labor studies at Wayne State University, opines about the need for decent-paying jobs and benefits for workers on the Gulf Coast. Bonior writes that employers and labor unions are collaborating to meet the need in a manner that works for businesses, workers and the broader community. "In observance of Labor Day and the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we should rebuild not only the Gulf Coast but all of America by encouraging decent wages and benefits for everyone."

In a feature story about Ben Yomen, it is noted that the labor cartoonist has given some of his original drawings to the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University. Tom Featherstone, Walter P. Reuther Library archivist, oversees the holdings of some 300 paintings and original drawings by Yomen, as well as collections of two other labor cartoonists of the same era. "His graphic style is quite simple and direct," Featherstone says. "He seemed to be very good with his one-panel cartoons, which in my mind are the hardest." A labor cartoonist's job, he says, was to emphasize to workers why they should continue to support their unions.

The Sphinx Preparatory Music Institute at Wayne State University will offer classes to Detroit students in music history, music-theory-ear training and instrumental performance for 10 Saturdays each during fall and winter semesters. Details about program requirements and contact information are provided.

This Associated Press roundup article about college football games in southeast Michigan includes a few paragraphs covering Wayne State 's 36-14 victory over Michigan Tech on Sept. 2. The Warriors Joique Bell rushed for 182 yards and scored two touchdowns, while Chris Middlebrooks added 47 yards on 13 carries, including a 5-yard touchdown run.

Timothy Bates, economic professor at Wayne State University, is interviewed in a Q&A about a 2003 study he co-authored with William Bradford of the University of Washington. Funded by the Missouri-based Kauffman Foundation, the study examines venture-capital firms that invested primarily in minority-owned companies through 2000. They found that 117 investments by those firms yielded an annual rate of return of more than 20 percent, compared to 17 percent for the Standard & Poor's 500. Bates and Bradford released a second study in June 2006 comparing those results with other studies of VC funds in general. The latter study concluded that the returns to the minority-focused funds are certainly no lower, and perhaps higher, than those of mainstream funds. A photo of Bates is included.

Jean Peduzzi-Nelson, associate professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at Wayne State's School of Medicine, wrote an opinion piece about stem cell research and the success of adult cells compared to embryonic stem cells. "The greatest advantage of adult stem cells," Peduzzi-Nelson writes, "is that it\'s usually possible to use a person\'s own stem cells, which is the safest stem cell option for people. This avoids the problems of rejection, disease transmission, chromosomal abnormalities and uncontrolled growth. One problem with embryonic stem cells that is rarely mentioned is that methods have yet to be developed to grow these cells in a manner that does not induce significant chromosomal abnormalities. She adds that the results with adult stem cells will eventually end a controversy that should never have existed in the first place.

U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz was honored by The Science Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based group that seeks to expand federal funding for university research. Schwarz received the group's Champion of Science award for supporting federal funding for basic science research. Wayne State is noted as one of four Michigan colleges that is a member of The Science Coalition.

Wayne State's men's cross country team finished first at the Michigan Tech University's U.P. Collegiate Season Opener Friday with 34 points. WSU's Steve Mance was the first college runner to finish, taking second overall in 16:27.0

Medical: Gerald A. Shiener, chief of consultation and liaison psychiatry at Sinai Grace Hospital, was chosen as faculty of the year by Wayne State University's Department of Psychiatry for outstanding teaching in running a clinical service.

Patient advocacy is a growing field since people are living longer, families are scattered, medical options are numerous, doctors are hard-pressed to handle more patients and insurance coverage has many bureaucratic layers. Peter Lichtenberg, director of Wayne State University's Institute of Gerontology, is a proponent of patient advocacy. Study after study shows there's a real barrier between the patient and the health care team. And people aren't always going to have that relative around. Dr. Robert Frank, executive vice dean of Wayne State's School of Medicine, believes that doctors may resist efforts of the patient advocate. "We have a long way to go to understand that someone who helps the patient get to the essential issues is going to be a huge time-saver."

A study in the British medical journal The Lancet suggests that, despite the presence of a Canadian-led United Nations police force and UN peacekeepers, 8,000 people have been killed and 35,000 women and girls raped in Port-au-Prince alone since the ouster of then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. In the study, published online in The Lancet yesterday, two (unidentified) researchers at Wayne State University\'s School of Social Work interviewed 5,720 people in 1,260 Haitian households in December 2005, asking questions about their lives in the 22 months since Aristide\'s fall.

Wayne State University's College of Nursing announced four new members to its board of visitors: Dr. Phyllis Meadows, director and health officer of the City of Detroit's Department of Health and Wellness Promotion; Michael Gillet, founder and president of Southfield-based Health partners, Dr. Barbara Zonca, research coordinator for Henry Ford Hospital's Department of Gastroenterology, and Christopher Crain, associate publisher of Crain's Detroit Business.

Mary Ann Tyler-Allen writes in a letter-to-the-editor that Michigan's higher education funding formula is not properly supporting the state's three largest universities. Under the formula, Wayne State University only gets credit for its 24,000 full-time students rather than the total 33,000 students who are enrolled at WSU, according to Tyler-Allen. "The Legislature shouldn't discriminate against part-time students. All students are trying to improve their prospects for the future."

In a calendar brief, it is noted that Diane Schuur and Wayne State University Jazz Big Band will be appearing Monday, Sept. 4, 9 p.m., at the Amphitheatre stage.

Federal agencies, state governments, and especially institutions of higher education are driving students who are from low-income families or are members of minority groups away from colleges and universities, according to a study released on Thursday that analyzed class mobility and racial matriculation rates in academe. The study concluded not only that such students face greater financial burdens than ever before, but also that those who end up at college are \"attending in ways far less likely to lead to a degree.\" Higher education has become \"simply another agent of stratification,\" says the report, produced by the Education Trust, a nonprofit research-and-advocacy organization, which did not blame any one group for that outcome. The group noted that federal Pell grants have leveled off in recent years and have not kept up with rising tuition costs, and also that state-government aid to low-income students has increased at smaller rates than aid to middle-class and wealthy students.