When Thames consolidated the number of colleges on this campus, he eliminated the Graduate School of which Hollandsworth was the Dean.  He was going to teach Mississippi History, but the administration pulled him from doing that because his advanced degree is in psychology, not history.  The administration said that he couldn't teach because of accrediation purposes, but Hollandsworth had approval to teach history by the guidelines of SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.)  

The Student Printz reported in the October 2, 2003 issue:

"Hollandsworth said he understands there are things the administration is authorized to do to which the faculty shouldn’t object, but he worried about the manner in which it was done. He said the chair of the history department, Chuck Bolton, was not contacted prior to this decision being made.
"In a very arbitrary, capricious manner this blanket statement without consulting faculty, this abrupt announcement that I’m not qualified to teach a course I’ve been teaching for three years," he said."

James Hollandsworth has been and will continue to be missed by a lot of students.  I have never taken any of his classes, yet he took time out of his busy schedule to help me do research for HIS300.  He retired in Dec. 2003 and moved to Jackson because his wife took a job there.  Although he retired, I truly believe that the Thames administration drove this wonderful professor away from our university. 

Interesting articles:

Look in the Student Printz archives from Oct. 2, 2003

Front page & in the Opinions section

 http://www.usm.edu/printz/archives/10022003/index.html

Also check out the Nov. 20, 2003 edition, it contains an article about his retirement:

 http://www.usm.edu/printz/archives/11202003/index.html