For decades, psychologists and pain researchers have recognized the role of thoughts and emotions in pain. Pain begins with a signal that nerves send to the brain. But what we actually experience is the brain’s interpretation of that signal – and the brain can sometimes be an unreliable narrator. For those experiencing chronic pain, pain often persists. Some experiencing chronic pain seek online communities, which are not always supportive environments. While conducting research on online groups for people with chronic pain, Hallie Tankha, a doctoral student researching pain psychology at Wayne State University, remembers one incident in particular: One member of a chronic pain Facebook group had left his bed for the first time in days and gone out to volunteer. When he shared how the experience had relieved some of his pain, other members of the group interpreted his anecdote as unsolicited advice and an indictment of their own inability to recover.  

A Starbucks store in Grand Rapids last month became the first in the state to unionize amid a broader organizing effort at the country’s largest coffee chain. Now, workers at nearly a dozen other Starbucks stores in the state are poised to determine whether they’ll join a union that has racked up dozens of wins across the country in the past six months. Voting in union elections administered by the National Labor Relations Board is scheduled for Tuesday at five stores in Ann Arbor and Thursday at five others in Clinton Township, Flint, Grand Blanc, Lansing and East Lansing. A store in Ypsilanti will vote on June 17. “This is a significant movement for the labor movement as a whole and the retail industry in particular. It reflects a potential change in the climate that is more favorable toward unions, particularly among younger workers,” said Marick Masters, a professor of management at Wayne State University who is working on a book about organizing efforts at Starbucks and Amazon. “The unions have had a great deal of success so far in winning certification of elections at various sites in which they petitioned to organize.”

By Kim Kozlowski   Wayne State University was getting national attention for having one of the worst graduation rates, especially among African American students, in 2013 when President M. Roy Wilson arrived. In the years before his tenure, WSU’s six-year graduation rate hovered in the 30% range and sunk as low as 26% in 2011. Graduation rates for Black students were markedly worse. Graduation rates were slowly improving when Wilson arrived. The year before, in 2012-13, the six-year graduation rate for all students overall was 27.6%, more than three times the 9.2% of African American students who were graduating in six years. Wayne State has since increased its overall six-year and African American graduation rate to 55.8% and 34.6%, respectively, in 2021. The APLU bestowed the 2018 Degree Completion Award on Wayne State for using innovative ways to help students complete degrees and having the most improved college graduation in the nation. The disparity among African American students leaving WSU without a degree was especially concerning, Wilson says, because beyond the impact on the student it also “has intergeneration effects if you can’t break the cycle.” “If you don’t have a diverse workforce and have one segment of society that is making it and getting the good jobs…you not only widen the income gap between minorities and non-minorities, you also widen other gaps,” Wilson said, pointing to quality of life, life expectancy and health. “It’s not just an issue of lifetime income, it’s an issue of what kind of life you are going to lead.” Before he arrived, WSU committed to investing $10 million over five years to retain students. Wilson said the university also had to change its culture. Wilson says the next step is to close the graduation gap between white students and students of color. “You bring in kids, schools are obligated to graduate them,” he said. “They incur debt and then they don’t graduate. You are doing a disservice to the students, and a disservice to society. It’s an issue of justice.”   

By Jennifer Selin Jennifer Selin, co-director, Washington Office, of the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation in which she analyzes previous congressional investigations in the context of the House Jan. 6 committee hearings which are attempting to answer the question of whether former President Donald Trump and his political allies broke the law in seeking to overturn the 2020 election results. The Jan. 6 hearings are part of a long history of congressional investigation, Selin writes. She notes that first congressional inquiry occurred in the House in 1792 and the Senate’s first investigation was conducted in 1818. “While the upcoming hearings of the House Jan. 6 investigative committee will be dealing with unprecedented events in American history, the very investigation of these events has strong precedent. Congress has long exercised its power to investigate some of the greatest problems facing the nation. In that way, the upcoming hearings fit squarely into the mainstream of American government oversight,” Selin writes.

By Naaz Modan In the week following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, multiple school shooting threats have surfaced across the nation, prompting schools to increase security or shut down buildings entirely. Following the COVID-19 pandemic school building reopenings, administrators and staff braced for an increase in student misbehaviors, including aggression and gun violence. While school shootings dropped during building closures, they have returned to pre-pandemic levels and may have even increased, according to Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit organization started by the Sand Hook Elementary School parents. Following school shootings, it is common for schools to increase security, including tapping into law enforcement for help. There is also concern, though, that some security measures may actually make students feel unsafe. “There is research to support that the presence of police and school resource officers (SROs) and metal detectors and random locker checks and clear backpacks are directly linked to the psychological trauma response,” said Addison Duane, a former elementary school teacher with a Ph.D. in educational psychology who is now a professor at Wayne State University.

By Ben Orner Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood gained a new Secretary of State office on Thursday. Located at 580 E. Warren Avenue, Detroiters will have access to typical offerings like license and registration services, as well as a self-service station that can print tabs, registrations and temporary licenses and IDS 24/7. The new office is located near hospitals and Wayne State University, and will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays except Wednesdays, when the hours will be 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

By Jabari Young Dave Roberts, one of the most powerful executives at ESPN, is pushing for more diversity at the network. Roberts is the network’s head of studio programming who oversees NBA programming, including the NBA Finals. Roberts grew up in Detroit, and graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in mass communications before starting his career at a local Detroit TV station in 1978.

By Jeanna D. Smiley  Long COVID can cause persistent COVID-19 symptoms including loss of smell, fatigue, mood changes, and brain fog in addition to disorders of the heart, kidneys, and lungs. These symptoms emerge or continue at least one month after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. It is estimated that 7.7 to 23 million Americans may have developed long COVID, a condition also called post-acute COVID or chronic COVID. While researchers have observed that vaccines have been effective in fending off some of the worst long COVID symptoms, they also found that mild breakthrough COVID-19 infections can trigger lingering, severe symptoms of long COVID even in vaccinated people. Dr. Joseph A. Roche, an associate professor in health sciences at Wayne State University agreed that vaccines do not replace other risk reduction methods for COVID-19. He pointed to a paper he authored, which urges “continued nonpharmacological risk-reduction measures…to complement vaccination efforts.” In his research, Dr. Roche cited mathematical models which predicted that such measures should stay in place for a year, even after the population reaches ideal vaccination levels.  

The United Auto Workers on Tuesday increased its weekly strike allowance for members to $400 per week from $275, a signal of strength ahead of the union next year approaching the bargaining table with the Detroit Three automakers, according to experts. The Detroit-based union has the funds for it, they say. In March, its strike balance sat at nearly $826 million, according to the union. For context, in 2019, the UAW paid nearly $81 million in benefits to striking members, which included stipends to the 46,000 General Motors Co. employees during a 40-day national strike, the longest again GM in nearly 50 years. "It could have a difficult round of negotiations, and the UAW wants to be as well-positioned as possible," said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University's Mike Ilitch School of Business. "I don’t think they’re signaling they're more likely to go out on strike than they would otherwise, but they're reflecting their prudence as an organization and have prepared themselves as a membership for any eventuality that may come to pass."

By Alyssa Hui  In the U.S., more than 200 mass shootings – events during which at least four people are shot and injured or killed – have taken place so far in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The most recent incidents in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed during a school day; and Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed in a grocery store, have left not only the affected communities but the U.S. as a whole reeling, still trying to process the tragedies. Some people may resort to anger or frustration; others may feel fearful and helpless; while still others may experience feelings of sadness, sorrow, and worry, Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist and director of the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic at Wayne State University said. Dr. Javanbakht also encouraged limiting media exposure. “If you [turn on] the TV, any of the cable news channels for hours and hours are talking about this – the pain and the number of people who got killed,” said Javanbakht. “Some even show pictures and videos of the chaos, and if you get hours of exposure to this, you will feel much worse.”  

The United Auto Workers said it’s moving forward with attempts to unionize a joint-venture battery cell plant after pushback from Ultium Cells LLC, a company General Motors Co. and partner LG Energy Solution own. UAW-GM leadership attempted to establish a card-check agreement with Ultium Cells that would give the union access to the facility to collect cards as a way to organize the plant, UAW Vice President Terry Dittes told local leaders in a letter. Ultium Cells employees are not covered by the national GM/UAW contract. Rejecting the union’s ability to collect cards from employees to confirm union representation complicates the effort to unionize the plant. Another path would be a vote by employees to decide if they want union representation. The vote would be monitored by the National Labor Relations Board. “The bottom line is that if you go with the secret ballot election route, it’s more difficult for the union to win recognition,” said Marick Masters, a professor at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business.

According to a recent study conducted by scientists at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, a novel technique for measuring the age of male sperm has the potential to predict pregnancy success and time. The research, which was published on May 13th, 2022 in the journal Human Reproduction, discovered that sperm epigenetic aging clocks may operate as a potential biomarker to estimate couples’ time to conception. The results also highlight the importance of the male partner in successful reproduction. “Chronological age is a significant determinant of reproductive capacity and success among couples attempting pregnancy, but chronological age does not encapsulate the cumulative genetic and external – environmental conditions – factors, and thus it serves as a proxy measure of the ‘true’ biological age of cells,” said J. Richard Pilsner, Ph.D., lead author of the study. Dr. Pilsner is the Robert J. Sokol, M.D., Endowed Chair of Molecular Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Director of Molecular Genetics and Infertility at WSU’s C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development.

Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy at Wayne State University said, “The House committee faces the challenge of trying to provide the American public with truthful information about the Jan. 6 attack at a time of deep partisan division and historically low levels of public trust in government.  Confronted with that reality, the committee seems to have decided upon a smart response: Show, don’t tell. Rather than simply telling the American public the facts, the panel’s first public hearing focused on showing what former president Donald Trump’s allies and supporters themselves have said and done. They paired that with the testimony of seemingly nonpartisan figures like Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards and documentary filmmaker Nick Quested.”

The ongoing shortage of powdered baby formula in U.S. stores has been caused in part by pandemic-related snags in the global supply chain and high inflation. But it’s also been exacerbated by product recalls from Abbott Nutrition, the largest supplier to the U.S. market. Amid the nationwide shortage, desperate parents have been crossing states and scouring social media for supplies, or making DIY formulas, which can be dangerous to babies’ health. “It is shocking that the U.S. baby formula market is so vulnerable, that the closure of a single factory throws the entire country into a food crisis,” said Kevin Ketels, who researches and teaches supply chain management with a focus on health care at Wayne State University. President Biden has invoked a wartime measure to give formula makers first priority from ingredient suppliers and has ordered military-contracted planes to fly in product from overseas. While it’s difficult to predict how the federal government and industry will prevent a formula shortage from happening again, it is quite possible there will be a shake-up of the players involved. “It seems that more companies will be allowed to sell because of this emergency,” Ketels said, adding that foreign suppliers who already meet the FDA’s nutritional standards (and who have significant production capacity) make ideal candidates.  

The Women Lawyers Association of Michigan Foundation has announced the recipients of this year’s WLAM Foundation Awards for Outstanding Law Students. Besides their academic performance at Michigan law schools, these individuals endeavor to advance women’s roles in essential areas of law, including STEM, social justice, equality, child advocacy, and domestic violence. The recipients include Wayne Law students Dominica Convertino, Fatima Dakroub and Samantha Mackereth.  

By Arash Javanbakht  Arash Javanbakht, associate professor of psychiatry and a trauma and anxiety researcher and clinician, wrote an article for The Conversation about the societal effects of violence following a mass shooting at a Texas elementary school. “In addition to those who experience direct loss, such events also take a toll on others, including those who witnessed the shooting, first responders, people who are nearby and those who hear about it – yet again – through the media,” Javanbakht writes. “While the immediate survivors are most affected, the rest of society suffers, too.” Javanbakht outlines the impacts on immediate survivors, those close by or arriving later to the scene, and those who are not directly exposed to a disaster but were exposed to news coverage. He also offers that some good can come from such tragedies. “We can channel the collective agony and frustration to encourage meaningful changes, such as making gun laws safer, opening constructive discussions, informing the public about the risks and calling on lawmakers to take real action,” he writes. “In times of hardship, humans often can raise the sense of community, support one another and fight for their rights, including the right to be safe at schools, concerts, restaurants and movie theaters.”  

By Rebecca Griesbach and Trish Powell Crain  A federal judge recently ordered R.A. Hubbard high school in Alabama to close its doors – a decision that sparked debate and frustration among many community members. Hubbard will close this summer. Younger students and teachers will be moved out of the majority-Black high school to other schools in Lawrence County. It’s a dilemma that hangs over many other rural, small schools in Alabama and around the country. In addition to losing half of its student population in a short time, the school landed on the state’s ‘failing schools’ list in 2019 after earning an ‘F’ on the state report card. The school has been stuck on the list throughout the pandemic, regardless of the progress they made moving their grade from an ‘F’ to a ‘B’ the following year. The superintendent said there are academic and extracurricular opportunities available at the county’s other schools that are hard to offer at a small high school. “What we learned [from Brown vs. Board], was that the burden of school closures was felt, both socially and emotionally, mostly by Black students,” said Erica Edwards, assistant professor of education at Wayne State University. She said educators in closing schools can face certain stigmas, and that school leaders should make sure that they are investing in culturally responsive practices to ensure a smoother transition. “When these schools close the they begin going to white schools, emotionally you have to bear the brunt of the difference: Being othered, being ostracized, having to prove yourself in ways that predominantly white communities don’t always understand or acknowledge or recognize,” Edwards said.

By Jennifer Hart Jennifer Hart, associate professor of history at Wayne State University and chair of the university’s general education oversight committee and a planning and implementation fellow for gen ed assessment, wrote an opinion piece about the steps colleges can take to create more intentional, intelligible general education programs in light of recent survey results that show disconnects and how institutions can invest in general education. “At a base level, it would require viewing gen ed less as a series of requirements (the language used in the survey) and more as a coherent program with dedicated personnel drawn, in part at least, from the faculty and committed to program improvement. An intentional program requires, at minimum, curriculum management, assessment and policy development. A general education program that cuts across multiple departments and engages all undergraduate students is highly complex and requires unique and often much more intensive forms of communication and coordination than a traditional academic department or program,” she writes. Hart says that thinking about different program elements carefully and investing in personnel and support creates opportunities to further engage faculty and highlight the intentionality of a program. Hart writes that the survey results also raise questions about marketing in the event that that students don’t necessarily understand the value of gen ed. “At Wayne State University, we’ve worked with key campus offices to craft materials and share messages about gen ed before and during orientation and crated a new website called “Engaged Gen Ed” with expanding resources to support students, advisers and instructors. These efforts set a foundation and provide support for ongoing conversations students have with their advisers as they advance through their first year and beyond. Early, ongoing and consistent messaging is critical,” said Hart. She also references WSU’s annual award recognizing instructors for their contributions to the general education program as a way of creating a culture of recognition and appreciation, the celebration of student learning outcomes, and ongoing assessment and improvement efforts to support this vital teaching work.

The Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy has selected three Wayne Law students to serve as legal interns in congressional committee offices in Washington, D.D. this summer. Internship recipients are Kawkab (Kay) El-Moussaoui, Bahar Haste and Yesenia Jimenez. Each internship position involves work with congressional staff from both parties and a bipartisan approach to oversight. Students work under the supervision of an experienced attorney who is engaged in conducting oversight on behalf of a congressional committee. This is the seventh year for the 10-week internship. Collectively, 25 Wayne Law students have participated since the program’s inception.

By Naaz Modan  On Wednesday morning, teachers and students nationwide filed into school hallways and classrooms less than 24 hours after news of another mass school shooting poured out of Uvalde, Texas. Students were required to take final exams, and teachers were expected to grade papers and continue instruction. From the outside, maybe, it looked like business as usual. But many teachers were experiencing emotions ranging from fear and helplessness to stress and nervousness. Nothing is new about the range of emotional, physical and behavioral side effects reported by educators across the nation in the wake of the Uvalde massacre. It is a ripple effect that many teachers have described experiencing after similar mass school shootings: Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Sante Fe, Oxford. That’ because those reactions are all symptoms of trauma response, according to Addison Duane, a former elementary school teacher with a Ph.D. in educational psychology and now a professor at Wayne State University. Duane’s research and expertise includes trauma and racism in schools. The trauma experienced after a school shooting can be layered on top of pre-existing traumas resulting from systemic racism, especially for those who work in or are members of communities that have been historically marginalized, like Black, Hispanic and low-income students. Robb Elementary School is a case in point: It is 90% Hispanic and 87% economically disadvantaged, according to school district data. Layering of trauma is now “a ubiquitous part of the U.S. experience,” Duane said.