To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. In IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hood lining patterns 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. Unfortunately, today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Bureau intended to describe.

Austin Presbyterian Seminary does not appear in the early Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) lists from 1927 or 1948, so the Bureau might not have assigned the college a hood lining until the late 1940s or 1950s. Lists compiled by Kevin Sheard in both Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970) described the seminary’s hood lining as white above royal blue, divided per chevron. “Royal blue” is a dark purplish-blue, not the seminary’s medium shade of true blue.

An IBAC list from 1972 said Austin Seminary’s lining was divided “white over blue”, but the Bureau cited identical descriptions for two other Presbyterian schools: Westminster College in Pennsylvania and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky. To avoid this duplication, here the division between the white and blue in Austin Presbyterian Seminary’s hood lining has been defined as being per bar.