The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) employed to divide the two or three colors in an institution’s hood, but beginning in 1895 the “parti per chevron” was also used quite frequently. Here the two school colors were placed one above the other in the hood lining, with the division between them following the shape of a chevron. Confusingly, in IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hoods were described as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]” which referred either to a hood lining divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar, and today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Intercollegiate Bureau intended to describe.

To avoid confusion with the hood linings the Bureau had assigned Temple University (white with a cherry red chevron), Western Reserve University (white with a scarlet chevron), and the Episcopal Theological School (also white with a scarlet chevron), the IBAC assigned North-Western College a “white above red” hood lining no later than 1927, according to an Intercollegiate Bureau list from that period. As the first institution the IBAC assigned to this pattern, North-Western’s colors were probably divided per chevron. By 1948, however, the Bureau had reassigned the newly named “North Central College” a hood lined cardinal with a white chevron, which was unfortunately a duplication of the hood lining the IBAC had already assigned to Dickinson College (cardinal with a white chevron) between 1895 and 1902. Here the original (and unique) pre-1927 IBAC assignment has been restored.