According to information from the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) recorded in the 1896 Living Church Quarterly (published in December 1895), Iowa College had been assigned hood lining colors of scarlet and black in 1895, but the heraldic pattern used to separate these colors was not described. Haverford College was listed with the same description.

In what was apparently an oversight by the Intercollegiate Bureau, these two colleges received duplicate hood lining assignments of scarlet with a black chevron. These duplicate descriptions remained unchanged until the 1960s, when Grinnell’s hood was cited as having a single color lining of scarlet in a 1970 list by Kevin Sheard and an Intercollegiate Bureau list from 1972. This, too, was a duplication of another school’s hood; this time it was Rutgers University.

To resolve these persistent duplication problems, the black chevron of Grinnell College’s original Intercollegiate Bureau assignment has been inverted.