Although it may have been assigned earlier, the academic hood lining design for Indiana University was first cited in a 1918 Encyclopedia Americana article on academic costume written by Gardner Cotrell Leonard, the Director of the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC).

Leonard stated that the university had been assigned a hood lining that was white (not cream) with a red chevron. But within a few years the IBAC would redefine the chevron color as cardinal (not crimson), a similar shade of medium red. By 1969 the Bureau finally cited Indiana’s colors correctly, describing the hood as being crimson with a cream chevron. Unfortunately, this was a duplication of the hood pattern the IBAC had also assigned to the University of Oklahoma. Two years later, a 1972 Intercollegiate Bureau list reverted to the incorrect shades of cardinal with a white chevron.

Why the Bureau originally assigned Indiana white instead of cream prior to 1918 is something of a mystery. Perhaps the color samples the university sent the IBAC appeared to be red and white, not red and cream. In any case, the Intercollegiate Bureau had not assigned any college or university a crimson hood lining with a cream chevron by 1918, so here Indiana has been reassigned this pattern, which allows the university’s hood to display the correct school colors.