Note to Faculty:  Below is a compilation of information and data beginning with a broad overview of Wayne State University and highlights, School of Social Work description including the Centers for Social Work Research and Behavioral Health and Justice. This is followed by a description of the infrastructure present at Wayne State University. This information can be used in whole or in parts at the PIs discretion, for grant proposals and other reports.

• Wayne State University

  In 1956, under the control of the Detroit Board of Education, Wayne State University, by action of the Governor and Legislature of Michigan, became a formal university. The early history of the university, dating back to 1868, is an account of originally unrelated colleges and schools, which united in 1933 into a single institution.

  Wayne State University is Michigan's only urban research university, located in the heart of Detroit's University Cultural Center, spanning 203 acres and is only a short distance from first-class museums, theaters, concert halls, and sports arenas. Wayne State University is a comprehensive and diverse university with nearly 25,000 students enrolled in 13 schools and colleges. There are more than 350 academic programs including bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees; post-baccalaureate, graduate and specialist certificates; and professional programs. Wayne State University is comprised of over 100 buildings and has 6 satellite campuses in the metropolitan area.

  As a university committed to excellence, Wayne State supports a thriving program for top scholars in its Irvin D. Reid Honors College; as a university of opportunity, Wayne State also enrolls a certain percentage of students who may require academic and financial assistance, and provides tailored programs to help these students take best advantage of its vibrant community of learners.

  Wayne State's research funding and expenditures are higher than ever in its history $313 million in FY2019. Wayne State is ranked 68^th among public research institutions according to the National Science Foundation. Wayne State is also a member of the University Research Corridor, an alliance of Michigan's three largest research institutions, including University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

  WSU Highlights:

  • Students at WSU come from 50 states, nearly 80 countries and 5 continents; the diverse student population includes: 14% African American, 58% White, 5% Hispanic (of any race), 10% Asian American, 0.3% American Indian/Alaskan Native, 0.1% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 4% multiracial, and 3% of unknown race.
  • Students at WSU receive more than $350 million in financial aid and scholarships and have more than 500 student organizations to choose from.
  • WSU's Hilberry Theater features the nation's first and only full-season graduate repertory company. Each year, the Hilberry Theater graduate program receives more than 500 applications from across the nation for fewer than 20 openings.
  • Wayne State's TechTown, a 12-block research and technology park, assisting in 2,700 startups and small businesses, creating more than1,600 jobs and securing $160 million in funding. This urban community of entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and corporate partners is creating an internationally influential village in Detroit to stimulate the creation of new businesses and jobs.
  • Wayne State is a partner in the University Research Corridor to communicate the vital role Michigan's three research universities play in revitalizing the state economy through transferring technology to the marketplace, educating the work force and attracting talent to the state. The URC produced $2.46 billion in research and development and contributed $18.7 billion to Michigan's economy in 2017 alone.
  • Wayne State University's Heart of Detroit pledge will cover the cost of tuition for all students graduating from any high school located in Detroit beginning in the Fall semester of 2020.
  • Wayne State is classified as "doctoral university: very high research activity" by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
  • A $40 million donation from the Illitch family brought forth the Mike Ilitch School of Business building which won the 2019 Real Estate Project of the Year by The Michigan Chapter of CoreNet Global.
  • Upon graduation, students become a part of an association of more than 274,000 alumni.
• School of Social Work at Wayne State University

  The Wayne State University School of Social Work (SSW), established in 1935, promotes social justice and fosters overall well-being through engaged teaching and cutting-edge research. The School offers academic programs at the bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. levels. With approximately 332 undergraduate students and approximately 622 graduate students, both the B.S.W. and M.S.W. programs are fully accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). The total enrollment includes 726 full-time and 228 part-time students. The SSW is well-served by 30 full-time faculty members of which 63 percent are tenured or tenure-track, as well as 68 part-time faculty members and 65 staff members (Fall 2019). The SSWs research portfolio has grown and their reputation for engagement with, and service to, the community is one of the best examples of how a university meets its urban mission. For the 2019-2020 year, the SSW has 52 funded research projects with a total budget of $19.8 million.

  As a school of social work in an urban research university, our mission is to transmit, develop, critically examine, and apply knowledge to advance social work practice and social welfare policy in order to promote social, cultural and economic justice for the betterment of poor, vulnerable, and oppressed individuals, families, groups, communities, organizations, and society. In addition to degree programs, the school offers the following graduate certificate programs: Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies, Developmental Disabilities, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Gerontology, and Research and Evaluation. Dual-title degree options are available in social work (MSW & PhD levels) and infant mental health, and social work (PhD level) and gerontology. A joint degree is offered in social work (MSW level) and public health, along with an interdisciplinary degree in social work (PhD) and anthropology (SWAN). 

  Research about social work practice has been an important part of the School's emphasis for over forty years. The School was among the first in the nation to institute a research sequence of courses in its MSW program. Currently, faculty are focused on research, maintaining high rates of publication equal to peer institutions and securing external funding to support their scholarship. Members of the faculty have been recipients of notable funding over the years, including funding from the NIH-Fogarty Institute, the Hartford Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the U.S Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Education, the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control.

  All computers are linked to the WSU network, and have e-mail capability and Internet access. The School of Social Work has wireless access throughout the building. Many software packages are available on faculty/staff computers, including Microsoft Office and statistical software packages such as SPSS, SAS, Stata, and NVivo. The School supports software and hardware for scannable and online surveys. Starting in the fall of 2016, all of the faculty and staff were linked via Microsoft Sharepoint for better document management and collaboration. All faculty and staff have access to on-site conference rooms, each equipped with computers, flat screen TVs and conference call capability. One conference room is equipped with focus group audio and video recording capabilities.

• Center for Social Work Research

  Supporting faculty in their research is the Center for Social Work Research (CSWR), a state-of-the-art hub linking practice and research to address the most challenging urban problems, build knowledge and capacity with agency and community partners, and conduct research that sustains communities. The mission of CSWR is to conduct and promote research that advances social work practice and policy in settings that range from urban neighborhoods to international contexts through a process of building internal capacity, establishing relationships, and expanding the body of social work knowledge by disseminating research findings. CSWR aims to build connections between community organizations and School of Social Work faculty in order to improve access to social work knowledge and to drive further research with practicum experiences. Areas of faculty research and expertise include:

  • Aging
  • Child welfare
  • Community, Policy, & Program Development
  • Health/Behavioral health
  • Interpersonal violence

  CSWR helps social work faculty be more effective in their research by providing services such as budgeting assistance, IRB application consulting, and assistance finding grants. The Research Support Lab offers technical services such as: data retrieval and entry, interview and focus group assistance, literature searches, quantitative and qualitative coding and descriptive analysis, survey creation and distribution, transcription, and more.

  In addition, CSWR conducts internal assessments of the School of Social Work, evaluations of internal events, and provides contracted research support to community agencies.

• Center for Behavioral Health and Justice

  Founded in 2018, the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice (CBHJ) is a collaborative, multidisciplinary research institute aimed at addressing issues at the intersection between the criminal/legal system, mental health and substance use disorders. With a goal of intervening at the systems level to prevent incarceration and improve services to individuals, this "center of excellence" assists local communities, organizations, and behavioral health and law enforcement agencies in diverting individuals with mental health and substance use disorders from the criminal justice system to appropriate treatment. The center provides stakeholders with expertise, evaluation, support, training and technical assistance to inform effective, evidence-based policy and programs. Currently the CBHJ is funded through a combination of federal, state, and local funding and employs more than 30 full time staff who work and live in more than two dozen counties. Housed in a separate space on WSU campus (Prentis Building), the Center has capacity to house staff offices and the technology to communicate with sites through interactive web-based programs.

• Libraries

  Ranked among the top 60 of the 123 research library systems in North America, the Wayne State University library system includes: the Arthur Neef Law Library, the Purdy/Kresge Library, the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, and the Vera P. Shiffman Medical Library and its Learning Resource Center at the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The School of Library and Information Science and the Detroit Area Library Network (DALNET) are also under the WSU Library System's charge. These libraries provide a broad range of resources and tools including circulation and collection/book services, computing and media services including software use, wireless and laptop use, printing services, remote services, computing support center and media services. Interlibrary services are also available including interlibrary loans, librarian and research assistance, course and electronic reserves and room reserves. The library system consists of an ALA-accredited Library and Information Science Program and an Office for Teaching and Learning.

  The Wayne State Library System is committed:

  • to being a national leader in the transition of library collections from print to electronic resources
  • to offering excellent client services
  • to training librarians (including school media specialists) in the information age
  • to developing and supporting student awareness of traditions, goals and structures of universities and their research libraries.
• Computer Resources

  Since the mid-1990's, Wayne State University has committed significant resources toward the ambitious goal of becoming the preeminent urban university in the creative and effective use of information technology, one that is known for providing unrivalled connectivity to a rich and diverse collection of shared networking and computing resource and services on and off campus. As part of the University Computer Facilities, WSU has built a reliable networking infrastructure that extends to all classrooms, offices, and laboratories in WSU-owned buildings on both the main and medical school campuses.

  Wayne State University's Scientific Computing Department develops, deploys, and maintains a centrally managed, scalable, Grid-enabled computing system capable of storing and running research related high performance computing (HPC) projects. The Grid infrastructure at WSU is designed to allow groups access to many options corresponding to the nature of research being performed. The core Grid services are maintained by the University's central computing staff within the Computing and Information Technology (C&IT) Department.

  The Researcher's Dashboard is an easy-to-use and intuitive tool that streamlines and enhances the pre-award and post-award grant processes for both researchers and administrators, providing a secure, easily accessible gateway to researchers' proposal and grant information. 

  The Michigan LandRail High Performance Research Network is a high-speed special-purpose data network founded by Wayne State University, Michigan State University, and the University of Michigan. MiLR provides as many as 40 separate 10 GB per second Ethernet connections between Ann Arbor, Chicago, Detroit, East Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo. The Internet2 Advanced Network is an advanced networking consortium that comprises more than 330 institutions leveraging a high-performance network. It enables services and worldwide partnerships to support and enhance their educational, research, and community service missions.

  Wayne State University's Computer & Information Technology (C&IT) division provides statistical research consulting services and technical assistance for all Wayne State students. These research services cover the use of computer technology at any phase of the research process (design, implementation, statistical analysis, or final presentation). C&IT also provides the following software free to all students: SPSS (free for registered students; discounts for departmental use), Adobe Creative Cloud (discounts for departmental use), SAS (discounts for departmental use), Thomson EndNote (discount for current students, faculty, staff), and Microsoft Office. C&IT provides information technology services and resources that support and enhance Wayne State University's teaching, learning, research, and administrative activities. C&IT's primary goal is to provide technology services that enable our students, faculty, and staff to be successful at Wayne State. C&IT strives to provide excellent customer service, respond to the changing needs of the University community, and make it easy and convenient for everyone to use technology on campus. The division also ensures that management at C&IT not only has the technical qualifications for their roles, but also has excellent skills for motivating and dealing with people.

  Wayne State University's Computer & Information Technology Division also provides students and employees with Mobile Phone Discounts at varying service providers. Additional information can be found on the C&IT website.

  An additional information technology resource at Wayne State University is WSU Academia. WSU Academia is a secure Internet gateway that provides single access to self-services (web registration, financial aid status, tuition payment, training registration, etc.), computing systems (Outlook365, Canvas, OneCard, etc.), and course tools.

  When a person logs in to Academia, it recognizes the log-in ID and displays information pertinent to that person's role at Wayne State (student, faculty, employee). Think of Academia as a one-stop shop. WSU Academia is for current Wayne State students, faculty, and employees. WSU students can register for and add or drop classes, check financial aid, holds, and final grades, pay tuition and fees, obtain enrollment verifications and transcripts, view class schedules, update personal information in WSU's records (address, phone number, etc.), manage WSU OneCard accounts, and keep personal or class calendars. WSU faculty view news about training, speakers, new software programs, payroll information, benefits and records, submit time sheets, view or update your address and phone number; access Canvas, schedules and class lists, submit final and early assessment grades, keep personal or class calendars, and manage OneCard accounts as well. WSU employees view news about training, speakers, new software programs, view payroll information, benefits, records, can submit your time sheet, view or update address and phone number, register for workshops and noncredit classes, access administrative systems and reporting tools, keep personal or work calendars, and manage their OneCard accounts.

• Division of Research

  The members of the Division of Research view their role in the context of Wayne State University's mission as a national research university within a diverse urban setting. They are dedicated to providing the students, faculty, and staff of Wayne State University with the best available resources to achieve the highest standards of research and scholarship. These resources include leadership, information, guidance and support.

  They accept the challenge of providing leadership in the development of new strategies of scholarship, including those that take full advantage of the strengths of interdisciplinarily. They participate fully in the partnership between our diverse urban community and Wayne State University, and communicate with pride the academic achievements of the university community, which enhance the personal, social and economic well-being of the members of our large community.

  The Division of Research's best indicators of success are recognized scholarship, research productivity, and the transfer of knowledge to our students and the community. They evaluate multiple indicators of accomplishment against national norms and an internal commitment to continuous improvements.

• Sponsored Program Administration

  The Sponsored Program Administration (SPA) Office within the Division of Research is responsible for the institutional oversight for Wayne State University's externally sponsored research projects and programs. The SPA provides service to three distinct groups: 1) faculty, 2) the University, and 3) the sponsors. SPA plays a role throughout the lifecycle of the project that includes:

  • Proposal preparation and submission
  • Award acceptance
  • Successful completion of the project objectives

  The SPA helps university faculty and staff address shrinking state appropriations and their subsequent impact on institutional budgets by finding alternative funding sources to accomplish the activities that meet the objectives of our respective colleges, departments and units. SPA's mission is to assist WSU faculty and staff in attaining funding from these sources for both research-based and other programs. After funds are awarded, the SPA ensures that they are utilized in a manner that meets both the institution's and the sponsor's expectations. It provides faculty with assistance in areas related to resource development, grant writing and proposal development, and compliance with programmatic and financial standards.

• Statistical Consulting Services

  Wayne State University's Department of Psychology provides statistical consulting services and assistance with the design of research projects and the statistical analysis of data. The service is available free of charge to Wayne State University faculty, staff, post-doctoral researchers, and graduate students. These research services cover the use of computer technology at any phase of the research process (design, implementation, statistical analysis, or final presentation). Consulting staff also provide support for using the following software: statistical (SPSS, R, SAS, G*Power, LISREL, HLM, and MPlus), qualitative analysis, geographic information system (GIS), spreadsheet, database, word processing, presentation, graphics, and desktop publishing. This service is staffed by and housed in the Department of Psychology and funded by Computing and Information Technology, and the Office of the Provost.