It’s a tough journey to become a professional athlete nowadays, especially for Hockey players, so athletes pursue training programs at a pretty early age to maximize their potential. Plymouth, Michigan has a premiere facility.

The city is home to the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. Over the years, players who train there have gone on to represent the U.S. in the Men’s World Championships, the Four Nations Face-off, and the Olympic games. Several alums are suiting up to play in this winter Olympics in Italy this year.

Assistant Executive Director for the development program, Scott Monaghan, joined the show to explain the work it takes to develop young hockey players.

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As conversations about climate change continue to evolve, the College for Creative Studies (CCS) is being proactive about the role its students will eventually play.

The art and design college has been developing the next generation of creative professionals for over a century. Graduates go on to work in transportation, film and animation, athletic apparel, and more. Throughout the winter season, CCS is holding a series of conversations that interrogates how artists and designers build a future that is more sustainable. CCS president, Donald Tuski, joined the show to explain why they are encouraging more sustainable and innovative designs.

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Since 1941 the Wayne State University Press has published over two-thousand titles that explore a number of topics from literature, to history to politics. Senior Director Stephanie Williams joined the program to discuss its offerings this season.

Notable titles

Repoliticizing the Word Through Poetry and Preaching: Early Black Christian Women’s Lives Matter  by April C.E. Langley

Weaving together the legacies of early Black Christian women, author April C. E. Langley explores how faith, poetics, and spirituality have shaped Black activism in the United States. Langley provides a dynamic close reading of the speeches, letters, poems, and sermons of three foremothers of modern Black women’s social justice movements—Phillis Wheatley, Maria W. Stewart, and Jarena Lee—and highlights the resistance strategies emerging from their use of religion as a means for imagination and potential liberation.

Dispatches from the Avant-Garage by Rebecca Kosick

Rebecca Kosick chronicles the rise, work, and legacy of the Alternative Press, a grassroots art and poetry publishing initiative founded in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan. Operated by Ken and Ann Mikolowski out of their home, The Alternative Press published original countercultural artwork and poetry by nationally renowned artists, including Alice Notley, and Robert Creeley, and Detroit-based powerhouse artists, such as Jim Gustafson, and Donna Brook.

Kosick’s research reanimates the Alternative Press’s unconventional publications with more than one hundred full-color images, while illuminating the national impact their avant-garde interventions had at the intersection of politics, art, and life in the twentieth century.

Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall by Dudley Randall, edited by Melba Boyd

Dudley Randall was one of the foremost voices in African American literature during the twentieth century, best known for his poetry and his work as the editor and publisher of Broadside Press in Detroit. While he published six books of poetry during his life, much of his work is currently out of print or fragmented among numerous anthologies. Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall brings together his most popular poems with his lesser-known short stories, first published in The Negro Digest during the 1960s, and several of his essays, which profoundly influenced the direction and attitude of the Black Arts movement.

By the Waters of Paradise: An American Story of Racism and Rupture in a Jewish Family by Clare Kinberg

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Detroit and art go hand-in-hand. The arts are held in the same regard as the automotive industry as one of the city’s great exports. But unlike the auto and manufacturing industries, the work can be a lot less stable, the recognition can be less visible, and the pay can be inconsistent. 

So what does an artist in metro Detroit striving to make a life here do? What supports exist and is it enough? Artists Sydney James and Halima Cassells join the program to discuss.

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The stories of Detroit in the 70’s and 80’s are ubiquitous. Residents went through tough times, economic downturn, violence and white flight. But a collection of stories about a girl coming of age in the city offers a different perspective of the time.

“The Patron Saint of Lost Girls” is a coming of age novel that follows Mary as she navigates girlhood amid difficult times for Detroit. Maureen Aitken, the author of the book, joined the show to discuss how girls have difficult experiences  early on that shape who they become. 

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Playwright August Wilson is often referred to as “theatre’s poet of Black America.” He’s known for his series of ten plays called the Century Cycle, where each play takes place in a decade during the 20th Century. 

Over the last few years, The Detroit Repertory Theatre has been producing Wilson’s plays in chronological order. Now through March 15th the group is performing “The Piano Lesson” which occurs in the 1930s. In this story family ties are tested when a pair of siblings disagree on what to do with a piano that holds significant value to their family.

Actors T. Pharoah Muhammad and Delanti Hall and Artistic Director Leah Smith join the program to discuss the play’s main themes and their artistic approach to the work.

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Halfway through the 2025-2026 NBA season, the Pistons look like a strong contender in the Eastern Conference. The team has only 10 losses through 42 games, which is the second best record in the league.

This sort of performance rivals the championship days of the early 2000s.

Omari Sankofa II, the Pistons beat writer for the Detroit Free Press and co-host of the Pistons Pulse podcast, joined the show to explain what’s fueling the team’s success and outline the keys to sustaining it through the rest of the season. 

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Artist Andre Barker is a Detroit born and bred painter. Since graduating from Wayne State University and Columbia College Chicago, he spends his time schooling the next generation of artists as a professor.

In Barker’s latest exhibition, he responds to the social and political pressures that make daily life difficult for Black Americans. He illustrates simple acts like existing and rest as mechanisms to find peace and power amid those struggles through his portraits of Black life in Detroit.

Barker’s exhibition entitled “Rest Is” is currently on display at M Contemporary Art gallery in Ferndale through Feb. 14.

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The Civil Rights Movement is largely remembered for its actions in the South, but segregation was a nationwide issue. Dr. King experienced this first hand.

Jeanne Theoharis is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. In her new book “King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South” she writes about King’s time in Pennsylvania and Boston as a student and his return to the Midwest, East, and Western regions of the U.S. at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

She joined the show to discuss the book and what it teaches us about social movements in America today.

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Immigration enforcement over the last year has become a lot more visible. Late last year, four Detroit students and their families were detained by ICE. The incident sparked outrage among community members who voiced their concerns.

Teachers, students, and parents requested the Detroit Public Schools Community District institute stronger protections for immigrant students, and over the weekend, protestors urged the city council to make Detroit a sanctuary city.

A new project spearheaded by two Detroiters aims to give people whose loved ones were detained or separated by immigration enforcement a place to heal.

The Altars for Collective Grief Project is an effort by Theresa Beckley-Amaya and Julianna Sanroman to construct altars around Southwest Detroit. They will be made of photos of loved ones who have been detained. Beckley-Amaya and Sanroman joined the show to discuss the project and why they organized around grief.

Submit your photos to the project here.

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In January, it’s customary to establish resolutions or set goals for the year.  But behavioral economists believe we could do more to change our spending habits.  

So many services nowadays—from streaming to software downloads to gym memberships—use a subscription model, which forces us to constantly pay monthly or annually for the things we want.

Michael Luca is a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. He has studied these behaviors and has a proposal to adopt a new trend at the top of the year. 

He suggests we take time in January to double-check all the accounts that automatically withdraw our money  and get rid of the service we no longer use. 

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The Lions entered the 2025 NFL season with the highest expectations possible: win the Superbowl. They unfortunately fell short of those goals, missing the playoffs completely.

For now, the player’s work is over, but work for the team’s front office and coaches is just beginning. Changes to the staff and roster are imminent and some of those adjustments have already begun. 

Jeremy Reisman is the Editor in Chief of the Pride of Detroit publication. He joined The Metro to explain how we got here and what needs to be addressed . 

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Michigan has been the setting for thousands of films. At one point, the state encouraged movie makers through incentives to produce their films here.

Those programs were cancelled a decade ago. Since then, productions have largely gone elsewhere to shoot.

As for the films set in Detroit, which ones really capture the city, its essence and the people who live here?

Steven Shaviro is a former film critic and professor at Wayne State University. He joins The Metro to discuss and critique movies that were made in or about metro Detroit.

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