by, Dr. Jack E. Thomas, Ph.D., HSPP, Clinical Psychologist & Professor of Community Psychology, Martin University
Dr. James Holland taught at Indiana University-Bloomington for three decades until his death in 1998. He was a kindly scholar, a celebrated teacher, a mentor to many and a trusted advisor. I was privileged to enroll in his Developmental Anatomy and Physiology course as an undergraduate student at IU Bloomington. I was contemplating a double undergraduate major in Psychology and Biology. I later however, chose to double major in Psychology and Sociology. The Developmental Anatomy and Physiology course was a 5-hour credit course with associated weekly laboratory work. My first occasion to meet Dr. Holland was on the first day of lecture.
I sat in the middle of a very large classroom in the Biology Building – a classroom that held around two hundred eager students many of whom preparing for a career in medicine. I anxiously looked around the room and I was the only African American student seated. I had no idea that Professor Holland was also African American.(Professor Holland was the first and only African American teacher I ever experienced before and throughout undergraduate and graduate school.) Class began and Dr. Holland walked into the classroom. He was impeccably dressed as he strolled to the front of the classroom. I was surprised and excited to see a professor who looked like me. Dr. Holland welcomed the class and immediately began to lecture. It was something to behold. The chalkboard on which he wrote must have been at least 12 feet long in this enormous lecture hall. Dr. Holland wrote as he lectured and amazingly made eye contact with the many students. His lecture was riveting. After class a rush of students approached him for further discussion. He was alway approachable, congenial and responsive to students. The Developmental course was associated with laboratory work. We were assigned a microscope and 10 mm slides. The lab sections were taught by Teaching Assistants (TA’s) but Dr. Holland frequently visited the lab sections. He walked around the lab asking if he could help as we attempted to identify cellular structures. I recall that Dr. Holland’s office door was always open and he encouraged students to drop-in. There was no shortage of student visitors. I took advantage of his open door policy on many occasions. He served as a treasured role model and mentor to me long after I took his class. My wife and I both earned our doctorates at IU-Bloomington. Carolyn was Professor of Speech Communication and now Professor of African American & African Diaspora Studies. I also taught at IU in the Psychology Department. Early in our professional careers, Carolyn and I, Dr. Holland and his wife Connie attended a number black faculty events. My friendship with Dr. Holland continued over the years. It is interesting that at these black faculty gatherings, I was still in awe of Dr. Holland and I had such great difficulty calling him by his first name until at one event he was somewhat annoyed and said ” Jack please, just Jim”.
Looking back, it turns out that Dr.Holland and I shared the same passion for teaching and a desire to increase opportunities for minority students in higher education. I have done so through my professorship at Martin University, a predominantly black college where I Direct Clinical Development of master’s students. Dr. Holland was a mentor of numerous students who later pursued advanced degrees in science fields and medicine. He also focused on programs for high school students to encourage and support early science education. These programs are part of the rich legacy of Dr. Holland at IU. My focus has been on supporting minority college retention in part by associating college work with occupational preparation. At the graduate student level providing advice and support to students as they complete the master’s of science degree in Community Psychology. This website’s focus is to inform, inspire, encourage and provide mentoring support. Ultimately we hope to increase minority student college retention. Support goes hand-in-hand with academic training.To-date at Martin I have taught thousands of students and supervised the clinical training of over 200 of our master’s graduates. Many of those graduates are now mental health practitioners in Indiana and elsewhere. Finally, I have long been interested in precursors of minority achievement. I developed a questionnaire and interview format to gain further insight into predictors of higher academic achievement. Years ago, Dr. Holland was kind enough to complete a questionnnaire and agree to an interview. In that encounter he described his achievement journey. I hope to publish parts of that interview on this website in the near future.
I am so pleased to honor Dr. Holland’s life and legacy. He is greatly missed by me and his many students for whom he served as an incredibly generous role model. He was my teacher, my mentor, a friend and later a colleague. I have included a photo I took of Dr. Holland. He was kind enough to pose for this photo upon our unplanned meeting at Bloomington College Mall. Sans hat, this is the gentleman scientist I saw walk to the front of the biology classroom so many years ago.
Please read additional information about Dr. James Holland on the links below. Let’s all celebrate Dr. Holland contribution to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education.
https://hudsonandholland.indiana.edu/about/history/holland.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Phillip_Holland
https://diversity.iu.edu/news-events/featured-stories/holland-summer-science.html