of education.
The board of directors nominated James G. Ryals Jr. as the school's first president when it opened in the fall of 1883, and when Ryals died unexpectedly of pneumonia in 1885, faculty member Joseph Harris Chappell held the presidency for a year. Chappell departed for Milledgeville, Georgia where he served as the first president of a new normal school that eventually became Georgia College & State University. The first graduating class of Jacksonville State Normal School was in 1886. It was one of the first educational institutions in Alabama to have a library on campus.
=== Name changes ===
In 1930, the name changed to Jacksonville State Teachers College. In 1957, the school name changed once again, to Jacksonville State College after the creation of the first graduate program, a master's degree in elementary education. In August 1966, the Alabama State Board of Education elevated the college to university status, which prompted a school name change to Jacksonville State University.
=== 2018 …
