The Merrill-Palmer Institute at Wayne State University is hosting its 23rd annual Metropolitan Detroit Teen Conference on Thursday, Nov. 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom on the main campus in Detroit. The conference will host 300 ninth and 10th graders from more than 50 schools and organizations in metro Detroit.

Andrew Humphrey, weekend WDIV Channel 4 meteorologist, will be the keynote speaker. Humphrey, who joined the Local4Casters team in 2002, came to WDIV from the Fox News affiliate station WUPW-TV in Toledo, Ohio, where he was chief meteorologist. Previously, he was affiliated with CNN and CNN International, NBC’s WRC-TV in Washington, D.C., and Fox\'s WTTG-TV. He also worked as a research scientist with the Biospheric and Planetary Sciences branches of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Prediction.

The theme of this year’s Metro Teen Conference is ‘Take a Giant Step.” The purpose of the conference is to bring metro Detroit teenagers together from diverse backgrounds to spend the day discovering what they have in common. The diversity is not limited to race, but also includes economic background, inner-city, suburban and those from public and private schools. The students will be put in small groups of six to eight people for topical discussions.

The discussion groups, led by trained adult facilitators, help the teens discover their commonalties and focus on positive goals while reinforcing in their own minds that they are empowered to make positive personal choices in their everyday lives.

Founded by the late Mary-Agnes Davis, the Metro Teen conference is designed to help teenagers understand they can make choices in life and provide teens from diverse backgrounds an opportunity to share, learn and understand different points of view.

For further information about the Metropolitan Detroit Teen Conference, call (313) 872-1790; e-mail mpi@wayne.edu; or visit www.mpi.wayne.edu.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.