To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. In IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hood lining patterns 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. Unfortunately, today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Bureau intended to describe.

The IBAC assigned Davis & Elkins College a hood lined “maroon above white” no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period. The IBAC had assigned the College of Charleston an identical hood lining in 1895 or 1896 – before Davis & Elkins was founded in 1904 – and as the first institution with this heraldic arrangement of its hood lining colors, Charleston’s maroon and white were divided per chevron. As the second school with the “maroon above white” color arrangement, Davis & Elkins was probably assigned a hood lining with the colors divided per reversed chevron, which echoes (but is not identical to) the reversed chevron in the college’s seal.