Reynolds College Blog

Shawnewa Dahozy completes prestigious M-PATH program

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Shawnewa Dahozy, a junior biomedical sciences major at Missouri State University, recently completed the Frontline Indigenous Partnerships (FLIP) Medicine Pathways for Advancing Tribal Healthcare (M-PATH) program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

The highly competitive program consists of a three-week immersive medical exposure experience. Only eight students are accepted into M-PATH each year.

During the program, M-PATH students shadow physicians and practice procedural skills through simulation workshops. They also participate in professional development activities such as panels, presentations and community building exercises.

Dahozy observed several different procedures in multiple medical disciplines during her stay, including emergency medicine, general surgery, ICU, OB/GYN and anesthesia. As a result, Dahozy now hopes to specialize in the emergency medicine and pediatric fields.

“I really enjoyed the fast-paced specialty [of emergency medicine] and having the opportunity to encounter patients from various backgrounds,” she said.

The program’s professional development components proved equally enlightening, she added.

“These sessions were not only educational, but also practical — providing tools I will continue to use throughout medical school and into my professional career,” Dahozy said. “In just three weeks, I saw tangible growth in myself — becoming more confident, focused and ready to take on the next steps in my journey.”

Following the onsite summer session, the M-PATH participants will continue the program virtually for one full year. This engagement includes quarterly group meetings, individual meetings and participation in various discussion topics. The FLIP team also provides extended support to M-PATH students through medical school and beyond, according to Dahozy.

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Anthropology Club visits historic Danforth Cemetery

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Members of Missouri State University’s Anthropology Club visited the historic Danforth Cemetery in Strafford, Missouri, during the Fall 2024 semester as part of a field trip learning experience.

Nine members, along with club officers Erin Ashford and Cora Darmody, accompanied Dr. Elizabeth Sobel and Dr. Scott Worman from the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology on the trip.

Danforth Cemetery history

According to Sobel, the Danforth cemetery was established in the nineteenth century for the burial of White and Black pioneers. The oldest surviving grave markers date to 1860, but the cemetery may have been established before then.

“Black pioneers were enslaved, brought to southwest Missouri by force, rather than by choice,” Sobel said. “Like many other historic cemeteries, the Danforth Cemetery was historically racially segregated, with the south end serving as a burial ground for Black individuals.”

Sobel added that the cemetery remains active, used by descendants of both the White and Black founding families as well as other community members.

Historic ties to MSU

According to Sobel, one goal of the field trip was for students to understand the historical relationship between Danforth Cemetery and MSU.

The Black section of the Danforth Cemetery is but one example of the history of racial segregation in Missouri, she explained. It illustrates for students how their experience at MSU is connected to that history.

Danforth Cemetery is the resting place of Mary Jean Price Walls, the first Black person to apply to (then) Southwest Missouri State University.

Price Walls applied to MSU in 1950, prior to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. She was denied admission to the university despite being an academically strong student, Sobel said.

In 2010, MSU granted Price Walls an honorary undergraduate degree in recognition of her significance as the university’s first Black applicant. MSU then named its Multicultural Resource Center after Price Walls in 2016. More recently, in August 2024 the Springfield-Greene County African American Heritage Trail placed a historical marker on the MSU campus to honor Price Walls.

Price Walls died in 2020.

Students sitting in cemetery
Anthropology Club students document head stones in the historic Black section of Danforth cemetery.

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Anthropology Club kicks off academic year with increased membership numbers

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Missouri State University’s Anthropology Club held its first interactive meeting for the 2024-25 academic year Sept. 9 in Strong 405.

The topic? Flintknapping, a term used by anthropologists to describe different methods to make stone tools.

On hand to demonstrate the ancient technique were Professor Elizabeth Sobel and Associate Professor Scott Worman from the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology (SAG). Both professors regularly participate in archaeology-related sessions with the club.

Things looked a little different this time, though.

Club officers Kyra Uphoff, president, and Erin Ashford, secretary, watched as students kept filing into the small lab room. Ashford started looking for more chairs.

By the time the meeting started, attendees were spilling out into the hallway.

Ashford later said that roughly 30 people attended the meeting, breaking previous attendance numbers. Typical attendance is 15-20, according to Uphoff.

Man kneeling on floor in front of students demonstrating rock tools.
Dr. Scott Worman demonstrates flintknapping techniques.

What is flintknapping?

“‘Flintknapping’ refers to making flaked stone tools, essentially making tools by breaking small pieces of rock – flakes – off of a larger piece – a core,” Worman said. “It is the process used to make things like spear points, arrowheads, knives, scrapers and similar tools.”

Woman working with stone tools
Dr. Elizabeth Sobel demonstrates flintknapping techniques.

Worman and Sobel demonstrated three general flintknapping techniques to the group: bipolar, percussion flaking and pressure flaking.

“We like to incorporate all three flintknapping techniques into our hands-on experience so that the students understand all three approaches,” Sobel said. “Some students discover that they enjoy or have a knack for one technique more than the others.”

According to Worman, using the bipolar method requires placing a small core on a large stone, called an anvil, and striking it with another large stone, called a hammerstone.

“It is relatively easy and was often used when the rocks used to produce tools were too small to hold easily,” Worman explained.

Percussion flaking requires holding the core in one hand and striking it with an implement held in the other hand, Worman said. Pressure flaking is similar, but instead requires the individual, called a “knapper” to hold the core while applying steady force to the edge with a rod-shaped object, usually made of antler. Pressure flaking is often used to put “finishing touches” on tools made by percussion flaking, he added.

After finishing the demonstration, Worman, Sobel and club officers handed out rocks, protective gloves, lap cloths and goggles so attendees could practice.

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2024 archaeology summer field school investigates historic company town site

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Missouri State University conducted another successful archaeological field school May 20-June 14, 2024, at the historic Phenix Marble Company Town site in northwest Greene County, Missouri.

Once again, Dr. Elizabeth Sobel and Dr. Scott Worman of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Gerontology (SAG) directed the program. They also co-taught the field school at Phenix in 2019 and 2022.

Twenty Missouri State students, along with three teaching assistants, participated in this year’s field school.

This year the group investigated remnants of a company town where Phenix employees lived from the late 1800s to the 1930s.

Local focus gives professional training at reduced costs

Missouri State has been holding archaeological field schools nearly every summer since the mid-1970s, Sobel said.

“While there have been MSU field schools in places like New Mexico and Jamaica, the costs of travel, food and lodging made those inaccessible to many students,” she explained.

Instead, Sobel and Worman have opted for local field schools. These reduce costs while giving students the training they need to become professional archaeologists.

Sobel said she and Worman direct the field school every other year, alternating with staff from Missouri State’s Bernice S. Warren Center for Archaeological Research (CAR).

Phenix Site has many pluses

Sobel and Worman said they return to Phenix as a field school site for several reasons.

“The fieldwork at Phenix builds on our previous archaeological research, [which explored] daily life of Black families in nearby Ash Grove in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” Sobel explained. “Like the Phenix community, much of the Ash Grove community worked in the limestone industry.”

“In 2019, we chose to expand this research to include the site of the Phenix Marble Company, which hired and housed only Whites to quarry and process limestone,” Worman added. “Our study can more fully explore both race and class dynamics in this part of the Ozarks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

Several people at archaeological dig
The 2024 archaeological field school hard at work. Photo credit: Lucy Arras.

In addition, the Phenix Marble Company owns the site. The owners give the field school access to the property, maintain the landscape, share historical information about the site and even provide portable toilets, Sobel said.

These, along with the site’s proximity to campus, are additional benefits to returning to the Phenix site.

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