Iliff School of Theology
Colorado
1892
Detailed historical information about the purple and white school colors of the Iliff School of Theology is not available at this time, but the seminary’s original colors were light blue and white. It is not known when Iliff changed light blue to purple. The shade of purple the seminary uses is dark, like a royal purple.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): blue/white (1923)
It is very likely that the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) never assigned an official hood lining to the Iliff School of Theology. Lists of hood linings compiled by Kevin Sheard in both Academic Heraldry in America (1962) and Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970), as well as IBAC lists from 1969 and 1972 that were apparently derived from Sheard’s work, all described the seminary’s hood lining as light blue with a white chevron. This was an exact duplication of the hood lining the IBAC assigned to Columbia University (light blue with a white chevron) in 1895 or 1896 – one of the first hood lining patterns officially registered by the Bureau. To avoid this duplication, and to employ the seminary’s new purple and white colors, Iliff has been reassigned a dark purple hood lining with three white reversed chevrons.
