A university in Michigan is seeking to make it easier for folks to obtain a bachelor's degree after attending community college, by removing barriers to access such as artificial limits on transfer credits.  Wayne State University in Detroit is putting all transfer students at equal footing by accepting all credits earned in applied, technical or vocational studies - including from community colleges. Mark Kornbluh is provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Wayne State. He noted that the average family income at Wayne is lower than at most other Michigan colleges and universities. "This is sort of ingrained in our DNA," said Kornbluh, "that we're supporting students who have drive and interest but are coming with fewer resources to start. So partnering with community colleges is really important there, because it cuts the costs for college degrees significantly." Kornbluh said previously, students could only transfer 12 credits from vocational training, such as training to be an EMT, for instance. But some of those programs require 60 or more credits.

All eyes are on Washington as lawmakers signal a potential breakthrough on gun control legislation. As that work is done on Capitol Hill, groundbreaking research is being done here in Detroit, focusing on the impact of guns.  

Walk into a Target store and you're likely to find more toaster ovens and skateboards and wireless speakers than ever before. The nation's seventh-largest retailer is literally overflowing with inventory. Products on its shelves and in warehouses climbed 43 percent during the first quarter of 2022 over the same period last year, the company said in its earnings call earlier this month. As a result, Target vowed to lower prices and accept lower margins to clear its stores. "What's happened is just as predictable as the setting sun," said John Taylor, associate professor of supply chain management at Wayne State University. "It's the backside of the bullwhip. Demand keeps changing dramatically. We don't normally experience this many large changes and it's very hard to keep track of the demand signals." 

Wayne State University kicked off its 2022 WSU Juneteenth Opening Celebration on Monday with African performances, a voter registration drive, food and live music. The university is hosting several events throughout the week.

Kids wonder about everything. If you’re an elementary school teacher, you undoubtedly fielded questions today such as “What’s for lunch?” and “How are caterpillars insects if they have so many legs?” Our students are naturally inquisitive and built for inquiry. Using the inquiry method is engaging and full of opportunities. In addition to being developmentally appropriate, inquiry is at the heart of social studies standards in many states. Although teachers sometimes hesitate before implementing inquiry in their classrooms, inquiry is easy to implement in elementary school social studies classrooms.

The right to abortion in some states could come down to a handful of people running for positions most voters pay little attention to state supreme court justices. State courts are likely to be flooded with litigation that could require them to rule on access to abortion — or even contraception and fertility treatments — should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks. In Michigan, much of the focus is, for now, on the state’s Aug. 2 primary election as well as a ballot measure pro-abortion-rights groups are circulating that could codify the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. But Whitmer is also asking the Michigan Supreme Court to rule on whether the state’s 91-year-old abortion ban is constitutional, a decision that could hinge on the outcome of the election. Michigan’s Supreme Court has a 4-3 liberal majority, with one liberal and one conservative justice up for reelection. While Justin Long, a professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, said it’s “extremely rare” for an incumbent to lose, more than $10 million was spent on the state’s Supreme Court elections in 2020, including more than $6 million spent by outside groups, according to the Brennan Center.

Michigan's longest serving U.S. Senator Carl Levin died in July 2021 at the age of 87. He was remembered by many and honored during a memorial celebration on Sunday. "I had the honor of calling Carl Levin my friend for more than 40 years… one of the most honorable and decent people I've ever known in public life. He was brilliant, humble and principle. Carl looked everybody straight in the eye and he listened. He always told you how he saw it with honesty and respect," said President Joe Biden. 

The family of the late Sen. Carl Levin and the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School honored the life and legacy of Michigan’s longest-serving U.S. senator with a memorial at 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 12, at Wayne State University’s Student Center Ballroom.

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 divide 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. It’s not clear whether these hearings will make a demonstrable difference in the public’s perception of the Jan. 6 attack. Maybe they won’t. Maybe America’s partisan divisions are too deep."

Family, friends and former colleagues of the late Carl Levin, the longest-serving U.S. senator in Michigan history, gathered Sunday to honor the legacy of a man known for his unwavering dedication to public service. The memorial was held at the Levin Center at Wayne State University nearly a year after the Detroit Democrat, who served in the United States for 36 years and was the state's first Jewish senator, died in 2021 at age 87. While speaking about Levin, guests paid tribute to Levin's wife, Barbara, his three daughters, Kate, Laura and Erica and his older brother, Sandy Levin. They also spoke about the late senator as a man well-known for his self-deprecating sense of humor and terrible sense of fashion. "I think his life was truly ... an American story," said Sandy Levin, a former U.S. representative from Royal Oak, who told the story of their grandmother's arrival in the country.

Ali Abolmaali, a civil engineer and former chair of the civil engineering department at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), has been selected as the next dean of Wayne State University College of Engineering, effective Aug. 15. Abolmaali also is a Dr. Tseng Huang Endowed Professor in structural engineering and applied mechanics, the founding director of UTA Center for Structural Engineering Research, and the professor-in-charge of the Structural Simulation Laboratory at UTA. “We are extremely pleased to recruit this strong leader to Detroit,” says Mark Kornbluh, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “Ali has a proven track record of growing student enrollment, recruiting diverse faculty and growing research. Most important, he’s accomplished this with a leadership philosophy that embraces collaboration and genuine care for others.”

Vending machines usually dispense candy and soda, but not the one at Jackson County Jail. As part of a pilot program the jail’s vending machine dispenses Narcan, a drug used to save the life of someone who’s overdosing. Everyday five people in Michigan will die from an opioid overdose. However, a pilot program is trying to reduce those numbers by giving more people access to Narcan, without guilt, without shame and with discretion. The Jackson County Jail got the vending machine through a grant from Wayne State University. 

Vending machines distributing the opioid-overdose-reversing-drug Narcan are being installed in strategic locations in an effort to reduce the number of overdoses in Michigan and throughout the country. Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice has used grant money to place 15 vending machines across the state, in places like county jails, centers that provide services for drug users, and the university’s undergraduate library. “You could administer Narcan, and if you are wrong – and the person is not overdosing – there is no harm to the individual,” said Wayne State University Center for Behavioral Health and Justice program manager Matthew Costello. Costello speaks with Paul W. Smith about the benefits the machines have for the community, and how people can assess and decide to administer Narcan. “We’re very excited about this program…we know it’s a lifesaving program…,” said Costello. Some of the people who are at most of overdosing are those coming out of jail. “Narcan is just one approach that the CBHJ has to address this issue. Part of my responsibility is to set up assistance programming inside our county jails so those people who are opioid-involved coming into the jails can either continue or begin treatment for their opioid addiction while they’re incarcerated…” 

Earlier this year, I came to terms with the fact that the lingering darkness of winter mornings leaves me sluggish. So, when spring sprung a few months back, I opted to try something new. I started going for a walk around my neighborhood, throwing on some athletic leggings and my trusty Saucony shoes as soon as I got out of bed. Now, most mornings I walk 4 miles to start the day. The results were nearly immediate, even though my distance started out much shorter: I have more energy, time, and footsteps logged onto my fitness tracker (if I remembered to put it on). I’m thrilled I got into the habit—let my experience inspire you, too. If you’ve ever suffered from jet lag, getting morning sunlight may even help adjust to the new time zone, says Tarama Hew-Butler, DPM, PhD, FACSM, and a professor of exercise and sports science at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. “Sunlight, or daytime, is the strongest external cue, or "zeitgeber," which sets our circadian rhythm to a regular 24-hour daytime-nighttime cycle,” she says. “So, sunlight does help us wake up.”

Things have changed a lot in the two plus years since the novel coronavirus came on the scene. Americans have had to shelter in place, distance themselves from their loved ones, wear masks and sometimes quarantine for days to keep others safe. Although more than one million people have in the U.S. have now died from COVID-19, many are wondering what kind of precautions they should be taking around the virus, amid a simultaneous rise in transmission rates and drop in hospitalizations in southeast Michigan. Paul Kilgore is the co-director of the Center for Emerging and Infectious Diseases at Wayne State University, as well as senior investigator for Henry Ford Health System’s Global Health Initiative. He says people should still be cautious around the virus because it’s still quite transmissible. “Now we’re seeing COVID-19 being able to transmit in the summer,” Kilgore says. “The other thing that is really important to know is that as the virus has mutated it’s become much more efficient at causing infection.”

In March, President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint task force with the goal of getting Europe off Russian gas and onto more of America’s fracked gas. Most Russian gas reaches Europe via pipeline, so getting U.S. gas to Europe will involve liquifying it and then shipping it across the Atlantic. And as shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the United States increase, so too do the threats from an unwelcome intruder inherently part of America’s natural gas mix — radioactivity. That’s because government figures indicate that much of the gas that will be shipped to Europe may come from the Marcellus and Utica, black shale formations in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. About 40 percent of natural gas produced in the United States comes from these formations, and, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, they have particularly high radioactivity levels. Radioactivity is a problem at multiple points along the natural gas production chain, and oilfield workers and communities in the Marcellus and Utica have been beleaguered by an array of radiological concerns, such as high levels of radioactivity found on public roads near a high school football field. “It is entirely appropriate to be discussing the radioactivity levels in LNG,” says Mark Baskaran, a geologist at Wayne State University in Michigan and a world-renowned expert on radon who has studied oilfield radioactivity in the Marcellus and Utica. However, it appears nobody in the United States or European governments behind the recent LNG deal is discussing radioactivity.

Wayne State University Law School alumnus Fred Harring donated $10,000 to expand the accessibility of “No Equal Justice” to the youth of Southeast Michigan, with an emphasis on Detroit. Released in February 2022, the book, authored by Professor of Law Emeritus Edward Littlejohn and Professor of Law and Director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights Peter J. Hammer, follows the story of George W. Crockett Jr. and how he fought racism and defended the constitutional rights of the oppressed. Harring hopes the donation will inspire a new generation of readers, historians, and social justice activists to learn about Crockett. 

Assault-style guns have been used in some of the country’s deadliest shootings. Researchers led by Cynthia Bir, professor and chair of biomedical engineering, at Wayne State University use gelatin to demonstrate how AR-15 style weapons create an “explosion inside the body” compared to handguns. “We see a lot more disruption. This round breaks apart. It does not exit, so it’s about 3,000 feet per second. All of that energy goes into the soft tissue,” said Bir. “It basically goes inside the body and creates an explosion…”    

By Sabine Bickford Last June, many residents of Detroit faced massive structural, economic, and health issues when flooding caused by heavy rainfall overwhelmed many of the city’s aging and unrepaired storm and wastewater systems – particularly in East Side neighborhoods such as Jefferson Chalmers. Researchers say that a combination of inadequate local infrastructure and global climate change meant that neither the storm nor the damage should have come as too much of a surprise. “There have been several news articles out there saying ‘Well, we’re having 500-year events every year,’” says Wayne State University civil and environmental engineering department chair William Shuster. “But really it’s off the scale, and there’s no way to really characterize these rainfall events.” May resident have been facing similar struggles for years. A collaborative study by WSU, the University of Michigan, Eastside Community Network, and several other local organizations found that over 40% of Detroit households surveyed between 2012 and 2020 reported household flooding. “This is something that everybody’s been struggling with around the country, around the world,” said Shuster. “If you’ve got a city, you’re struggling with stormwater or wastewater.” In April, Shuster joined several other researchers for a roundtable discussion at the Wayne State campus on Detroit’s recent flooding and infrastructure issues. The conversation was a part of the University Research Corridor’s Hidden Health Threats tour that brought together researchers, policymakers, and other community leaders to discuss some of the most pressing environmental issues facing Michigan communities.

By Georgea Kovanis The newest vending machines in Michigan aren’t dispensing pop or chips, they’re doling out Narcan, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Popping up at strategic locations, the machines represent the latest attempt to make Narcan more available to the public in an effort to quell the staggering number of overdoses in Michigan and across the nation. Using grant money, Wayne State University’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice has placed 15 vending machines across the state, including the university’s undergraduate library, as well as centers that provide services for drug users. Eight of the machines are located in county jails – Monroe, Jackson, Manistee, Washtenaw, Delta, Kalamazoo, Wexford and Oakland county jails – for use by inmates who are being released after serving time or, in some cases, by jail visitors. Jails are especially important locations because research shows drug users leaving incarceration are at high risk of fatal overdoses. “The data is clear about overdose rates about people post incarceration,” said Matthew Costello, program manager at the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice. “It’s been proven time and time again in state and state and site and site. So we understand that vulnerability. To ignore that is criminal in its own right.”