Moniaree Jones, a member of the program’s first graduating class, gave TROY’s ASN Program her uniform, cap, textbooks, and clinical materials she kept for more than 50 years. 

Moniaree Jones, a 1974 graduate of Troy University’s first Associate of Science in Nursing class, has donated her student uniform and other class materials to the ASN program on the Montgomery Campus. 

The donation includes a maroon uniform top with a TROY patch on the sleeve, a white pinafore, the program’s first cap, textbooks, a graduation program, a class photograph, and a clinical card written by an instructor. Jones said the items are already in a display case. 

“This donation documents the start of the Associate of Science in Nursing program,” said Dr. Wade Forehand, Director of the School of Nursing. “It gives current students a record of the first class, the clinical sites, and the uniform they wore.” 

Jones was packing her house for sale after her husband’s death on February 28 when she found the materials. She said she donated them because the program has an anniversary approaching and she thought the school might want the records. 

“I was in TROY Montgomery’s very first class, 1974,” Jones said. “I started packing up stuff and I thought, you know, I believe they might like to have this.” 

TROY organized the ASN program in 1971 to supply registered nurses to Montgomery and surrounding communities after the area’s other nursing education program closed. Jones said 44 students graduated in the first class. 

Students in the first class completed clinicals at Baptist Medical Center South, Jackson Hospital, and Maxwell Air Force Base. Jones’s clinical site was Maxwell. Psychiatric clinicals were at the Tuskegee VA. 

Jones said many students were uneasy about leaving the St. Margaret’s School of Nursing diploma program. She later decided TROY had an advantage. 

“It really was a blessing in disguise,” Jones said. “TROY’s program allowed a lot of those credits to transfer.” 

Jones said most classmates were from Montgomery. Others came from Gadsden, Tallassee, Selma, Columbus, Georgia, Elmore County, Tuskegee, and Troy. She identified Patricia Vial, from Alaska, as the student who traveled the farthest. 

Jones also donated textbooks and a card from Mercedes Munson, her clinical instructor at Maxwell. Munson gave students a handwritten question at the start of clinical, and students were expected to answer it by post-conference. There were no computers in the hospital for looking up the answer. 

Jones said one card asked, “What is dumping syndrome?” She had a patient who had undergone stomach surgery. She wrote the answer on the back of the card and kept it. 

“You could not be unprepared for clinical,” she said. “She was going to ask you what the answer was.” 

“Mrs. Jones gave the ASN program a direct record of its first class,” said Dr. Amanda Dunagan, ASN program coordinator. “The uniform, the original cap, and the clinical card show students what the Montgomery program required in 1974. We appreciate her sending them back.” 

Jones earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1980. She later completed a master’s degree and a doctorate at Alabama in her early 50s. She taught psychiatric nursing, retired from Samford University two years ago, still attends a Wednesday clinical, and teaches two undergraduate online courses for the University of Alabama. 

“TROY has a special place in my heart, and I just hope it benefits in some way,” Jones said.