The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the 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 in the hood lining one above the other, 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 IBAC intended to describe.

To avoid duplicating the hood linings already assigned to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (orange with a navy blue chevron) or the University of Virginia (navy blue with an orange chevron), by 1927 the IBAC had assigned an “orange above dark blue” or “orange above navy blue” hood lining to three colleges: Cedarville College, Hope College, and Morgan College.

The official colors of Morgan College were burnt orange and navy blue, but the college must have sent a brighter orange fabric sample to the IBAC because 1927, 1948, and 1972 IBAC lists described the college’s hood lining as “orange above navy blue”, and a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) stated that the orange and navy blue colors were divided per chevron. This was a duplication of the hood lining assigned to Hope College, so to correct this problem Morgan College’s traditional burnt orange and navy blue colors have been used.