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YSU community has smashing good time to honor former professor
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Sara Kropp smashed her frustrations to pieces.
The Youngstown State University junior from Sharon, Pa., wrote “scheduling conflicts” and “cultural anthropology” on two ceramic plates and threw them to the ground, shattering them to pieces.
“It’s a great stress reliever,” she said Wednesday morning on the patio of DeBartolo Hall.
The relief is for a good cause.
Students, staff, faculty or passers-by paid $1 for two large plates or three smaller ones, and the money went to the Dr. John R. White Scholarship Fund.
The YSU Anthropology Colloquium hosted the event.
White “was something of a local legend,” said Matt O’Mansky, an associate professor in YSU’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
When White retired in spring 2005 after 34 years at YSU, O’Mansky was hired to fill that vacancy. White died in 2009 at 72.
It was a White-led team that excavated the 1830s Mill Creek iron furnace in Mill Creek Park in 2003.
In 2004, he and a team of students assisted the Mahoning County coroner investigating the death of a man whose decomposed body was found buried in the basement of a house on Alameda Avenue.
In 2005, White led the excavation and restoration of the Old Stone Bridge at YSU, a campus landmark, located between Maag Library and Wick Avenue, that was buried in the 1960s.
During his time at YSU, the late professor collected a slew of plates from flea markets, garage sales and other places for an archaeological experiment. When he retired, many of those plates remained. O’Mansky, after talking to White’s daughter, came up with the idea for the fundraiser, which the colloquium first staged last spring.
It raised about $175. There are enough plates to have the fundraiser a couple of more times.
Amanda Pishotti, a YSU senior from Cortland, wrote “tests, quizzes, group projects” on a plate before smashing it to pieces.
It felt good, she said.
“It’s so relieving, stress relieving,” she said.