Millikin University
Illinois
1901
Formerly “James Millikin University”
James Millikin University was founded in 1901, and students chose “Yale blue” and white as the school’s colors in 1903. “Yale blue” is a dark blue, but in actual practice various shades of medium and dark blue were used during the early years of Millikin. By the 1940s the university’s blue had officially lightened to a medium blue shade and was being described as plain “blue”.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): navy blue/white (1913); blue/white (1914-1918); navy blue/white (1923-1931); blue/white (1934-1935)
Although it may have been assigned earlier, the academic hood lining design for James Millikin University was first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC). Based upon fabric samples sent to the IBAC, the university was assigned a hood lining that was “Presbyterian blue” with a white chevron, a description retained until a 1972 IBAC list, which described the hood lining as “blue”. This is not a contradiction: Presbyterian blue is a “true blue” ranging from a dark azure to a medium blue shade, and Millikin is affiliated with the Presbyterian church.
But this does contradict an IBAC list from the late 1930s in the Encyclopedia Americana that describes the hood lining as “azure blue” (bright blue) with a white chevron, as well as the early descriptions of Millikin’s blue in the World Almanac and other sources as navy blue or Yale blue.
Here Millikin’s 1918 IBAC hood lining assignment has been retained to avoid duplicating the hood lining assigned to Pennsylvania State University (navy blue with a white chevron).