The federal government is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications. The order is intended to help catch terrorists and other criminals. The action has unleashed protests and the threat of lawsuits from universities, which argue that it will cost them $7 billion.

Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid has announced this year's Research Enhancement Program seminar titled "Wayne State University President's Conference on Health Disparities." According to Reid, "This event will explore the underlying cause of the disparity in health outcomes, particularly those related to chronic diseases among medically underserved and ethnic minority populations living in an urban environment." The seminar will be held on Oct. 10 -11 in the McGregor Memorial Conference Center .

The WSU School of Law is hosting the American Constitution Society's symposium on diversity Oct. 27. WSU's Law School is hosting a roundtable on the Ten Commandments, Nov. 10. The WSU Law School will host reunions for the classes of 1970, 1975, 1980, 1990 and 2000 on Nov. 9.

The Times picked up an AP article about the role of minority contractors in the Hurricane Katrina clean-up effort. John Chichester, who heads the Procurement Technical Assistance Center at Wayne State, pointed out that subcontractors are often left "picking up the scraps" while larger contractor's get the bulk of the jobs. Chichester advises small businesses on how to win government contacts.

Wayne State University on Thursday will officially rename one of its residence halls after Yousif Ghafari. The university will rename North Residence Hall after the chairman of Dearborn-based Ghafari Cos. in recognition of his support of the school. Ghafari, a WSU alumnus and member of the WSU Foundation board and capital campaign committee, pledged $9 million to the university in the spring. His donation will help support the university's new engineering development center and endowments for student programs and scholarships, mathematics, engineering and medicine.

Wayne State employees offered comments in a story about the death of Rosa Parks. Anglenn Perryman, 38, a groundskeeper and political science student, called Parks \"a symbol of strength at a time we really needed it. We needed someone like her, a black woman all by herself, to stand up. By standing up that gives us motivation and the inspiration to this day." Rodney Redmond, 48, a parking attendant, said she was a brave, brave person. \"They need to do her right,\'\' in celebrating her homecoming, he said."They ought to do her like they did Coleman Young or Martin Luther King. There should be a holiday for her, too.\'\'

Performing: Guitar virtuoso Ana Vidovic in concert at 11:45 a.m. Nov. 18. at Wayne State University \'s Schaver Recital Hall, 480 W. Hancock, Detroit . The event is free; for additional, info call 313-577-1795.

Fort Wayne picked up this story from the Detroit Free Press on overanxious mothers potty training infants prematurely. Carolynn Rowland, a nurse for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, worries that parents who try infant potty training may have unrealistic expectations. \"My concern is if you put the onus on the child to do something you want them to do that they\'re not capable of doing, you may be setting them up for problems and you\'re putting a whole lot of pressure on them.\"

The banquet will be held at 6 p.m., Nov. 2, at Seldom Blues in Detroit . The event, sponsored by DaimlerChrysler Corporation, will honor Viola Liuzzo, a Detroiter who became the nation\'s first white woman civil rights martyr. Tickets are $85. A portion of the proceeds will benefit OBA\'s scholarship program. Information: (313) 577-2279.

Wayne State University said Thursday it had published a new report on what it terms \"technological peripheries,\" areas where high-tech systems intersect with -- and often conflict with -- lower-tech systems, frequently resulting in problems and even disasters. An international group of researchers, organized by Wayne State and sponsored by the National Science Foundation of the United States and el Consejo Nacional Ciencia y Tecnología of Mexico, met last year in Mexico City to examine the challenges of large-scale systems, focusing on air transport networks. This workshop found that the rapid development of technology in the United States and Europe was outstripping the diffusion of that technology to developing countries, resulting in mismatches in language, infrastructure, regulation, and management practices. To obtain a copy of the report, contact Allen Batteau, director of Wayne State \'s Institute for Information Technology and Culture, at (313) 874-7010. More at www.iitc.wayne.edu.

Wayne State University and the Comerica Charitable Foundation recently dedicated the Comerica Charitable Academic Success Center at the David Adamany Undergraduate Library. The dedication of the center celebrates the $500,000 donation made by the Comerica Charitable Foundation to support the center and Wayne State 's capital campaign. The center, dedicated to promoting academic success for all students, provides tutoring, supplemental instruction, reading and study skills. A photo is included featuring President Irvin D. Reid ; Jan Collins-Eaglin, director of the Comerica Academic Success Center ; Matthew Taylor, Academic Success Center tutor; Markeysha Davis, Detroit Compact scholar; and representatives from Comerica Charitable Foundations and Comerica Inc. A companion story features an interview with Collins-Eaglin and a photo of students and staff at the center.

WSU will hold a session on advanced degrees during its Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology Program Information Session, Oct. 28th.

An award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will add more than $200,000 in funding to Wayne State University 's Graduate School . The aim of this award from the NSF Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES) is to increase significantly the number of African-American, Hispanic and Native American/Alaskan Native students receiving doctoral degrees in the social sciences.

The Wayne State University Physician Group said Friday that it plans to buy a building in Troy to house a new ambulatory-surgery center. The purchase launches the group's "suburban strategy," Robert Frank, dean of the Wayne State Medical School , said in a letter. Frank said the strategy will build the group's clinical business and, eventually, the bottom line of The Detroit Medical Center, the group's clinical partner. Frank acknowledged that the surgery center may make the DMC and other clinical affiliates "uneasy" but said the group had "taken special care to ensure that our strategies complement our partner's position rather than competing with it."

According to the mainstream media, there is now a "100% effective" vaccine against the two strains of the human papilloma virus (HPV) that causes most cases of cervical cancer. It is not quite that simple. Some morally conservative parents together with Christian and right-wing pressure groups are suggesting than an HPV vaccine would promote teenage sexual promiscuity. It's an argument which wins no favor with Dr Jack Sobel, a professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit . He recently told Medscape: "It is beyond belief that there has been public opposition to, and protesting against, a vaccine that will save lives. The concern of increased promiscuity is incomprehensible."

Randal Charlton, CEO of Asterand, says Wayne State offered his company the perfect setup for location in TechTown's TechOne building. "They offered me the lab space I wanted, the ability to expand, offered to help me acquire new equipment and finding people and technical support," Charlton says. \"They were so accommodating, they even built us a floor\" in TechTown\'s TechOne building \"when they weren\'t even sure we would move there.\" Howard Bell, executive director of TechTown, heard about Asterand\'s space crunch and waged an aggressive campaign to lure the company there. A photo of Bell with Charlton is included.

A national AP story talks about the financial challenges faced by small companies that perform sub-contracting duties, known as tiering, especially during disaster relief projects such as Hurricane Katrina. Tiering worries small businesses even when there are no disasters involved, said John Chichester, who heads the Procurement Technical Assistance Center at Wayne State University . The federal government\'s spending on recovery efforts has drawn headlines and Congressional inquiries about outsized contracts, including $2 billion to four companies for debris cleanup in Louisiana and Mississippi. But at the bottom of the contract food chain is an army-for-hire of truckers, backhoe operators and tree-trimmers, most four, five or more tiers removed from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the agencies\' money. \"The more contractors there are,\" said Ben Ives, a truck owner from Gladstone , Mich. five links down in the chain formed to clean up New Orleans , \"the more hands in the cookie jar.\"

A national story features the life of Catherine and Carlo Tuzzolino, married for 67 years, who first met as students at Wayne State University 67 years ago. Carlo was a member of the track, swimming and football teams at Wayne State , formerly know as Detroit City College . Catherine, 90, and Carlo, 93, died Oct. 21, just two hours apart.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick mentions Wayne State in an op-ed about his administration's achievements during the last four years. Kilpatrick wrote, "One key to our future is the $56-million NextEnergy Center at Wayne State University , which opened last spring. The center is a key part of our strategy for diversifying our manufacturing base and attracting clean technology companies."

Organizers of the inaugural \"Ideas Behind the News\" events of the Oakland Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union acknowledge the three-part series isn\'t a \"Crossfire\"-style debate. \"It\'s definitely discussed from a standpoint of taking action. It\'s not neutral,\" said Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University who will moderate the events. The series, which begins Tuesday, will focus on three divisive issues making headlines: affirmative action, abortion rights and intelligent design. ---\"Science Under Siege: The Challenge to Evolutionary Theory - \'Intelligent Design,\' \" at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Birmingham Unitarian Church . Panelists include William Moore, professor of biological sciences at Wayne State University , and John Saliba, professor of religious sciences at the University of Detroit Mercy .