Arizona State University
Arizona
1885
Detailed information about the history of Arizona State University’s maroon and gold school colors is not available at this time.
At an unknown date, the administration of Arizona State University authorized the use of a specially-designed doctoral gown as an optional alternate to the traditional doctoral gown.
Arizona State’s “custom” gown is still black, but it features maroon velvet sleeve bars and facings edged with gold piping. ASU has also added maroon velvet, piped with gold, to the lower quarter of the gown.
Since the velvet trim of ASU’s custom gown is maroon, the wearer is prevented from using velvet trim in the Faculty color of his or her degree, which is possible with the traditional black gown.
To the right is a photo of Arizona State University’s custom gown from the Oak Hall company.
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) must have assigned a hood lining pattern to Arizona State University in the late 1940s or 1950s. In a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and in a 1969 list by the IBAC, Arizona State University was cited as using a hood lined maroon with a gold chevron.
Unfortunately this was a duplication of the hood lining pattern the IBAC had already assigned to Calvin College, so here Arizona State has been reassigned a maroon hood lining with two chevrons, a heraldic division the IBAC had been using to avoid duplications like this since 1895.
The IBAC had assigned a similar hood lining to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (burgundy with two gold chevrons) but this institution merged to form the California Institute of the Arts in 1961 and no longer uses that hood lining pattern.
