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. One of the heraldic divisions the Bureau employed was the “double chevron”. The typical width of a normal chevron was between three and four inches, but the double chevron pattern used two chevrons of about 1½ inches in width placed approximately two inches apart so that the color of the hood lining showed between them.

The Intercollegiate Bureau assigned Drury University a hood lining that was gray with two cardinal chevrons no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period. However, the university’s red was actually scarlet, not cardinal. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) correctly described Drury’s hood lining as gray with two scarlet chevrons.

Originally, when the college was (incorrectly) cited as having gray and cardinal colors, the IBAC assigned Drury two chevrons to avoid confusion with Loyola University of California, which had probably been assigned a hood lining with similar colors: gray with a single crimson chevron.