The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) must have assigned a hood lining to the Illinois College of Optometry in the late 1940s or 1950s because it first appeared in a list of hood lining patterns compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962). Sheard stated that the hood had a lining that was royal blue with a tri-chevron of white, seafoam green, and white. A 1972 Intercollegiate Bureau citation is similar.

A “tri-chevron” is a standard chevron that has been subdivided into three smaller chevrons, each chevron one to 1½ inches in width, so that the lining color does not show between them.