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 a college or university’s hood, but by 1918 IBAC president Gardner Cotrell Leonard was also using what he called a “wide chevron”. The typical width of a normal chevron was between three and four inches, but the wide chevron hood lining used a chevron with a width of 4½ inches, five inches, or six inches. The Bureau did not assign a wide chevron very often, as it tended to hide the color above the chevron when the hood was folded and worn, which gave the lining the appearance of being divided per chevron.

The Bureau assigned Albright College a hood lining that was cardinal with a “double width” white chevron no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period, and a 1972 IBAC list defined the chevron as being seven inches in width. However, a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described Albright’s hood lining as cardinal with a reversed white chevron. This citation may have been erroneous, but if not it suggests that the college may have been using a heraldic pattern not assigned by the Intercollegiate Bureau as a way to resolve the wide chevron problem discussed above.

Here Albright has been reassigned a cardinal hood lining with its wide white chevron divided into three white chevrons.