Asbury University
Kentucky
1890
Asbury College students had been using purple and white colors for many years before the Board of Trustees officially adopted them as the school colors in 1925. The shade of purple was dark, like a royal purple, which can be seen in vintage memorabilia from the college. Because it is the traditional color of royalty, Asbury’s purple was meant to symbolize the nobility, spirituality, and kingship of Jesus Christ. White was intended to signify “moral or spiritual purity” and the “wholeness and completion” that is found in a relationship with Christ.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): purple/white (1923-1935)
Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927 and 1948 described Asbury College’s hood lining as white with a purple chevron. Since the Bureau usually abbreviated “royal purple” to “purple” in its citations, the actual color of the chevron was probably royal purple.
However, a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described Asbury’s hood lining with interchanged colors: purple with a white chevron. Probably thinking that Asbury had changed its design without consulting the Bureau or that its records were erroneous, a 1972 IBAC list repeated Sheard’s description. This information was incorrect because this new lining pattern would have duplicated the lining the IBAC had assigned either Amherst College (purple with a white chevron) or Mount Union College (royal purple with a white chevron).
To resolve this problem the IBAC’s original and unique hood lining assignment from the early 1900s has been restored with a chevron in the correct shade of royal purple.