The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) employed to divide the two or three colors in an institution’s hood, but beginning in 1895 the “double chevron” was also used quite frequently. 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.

To avoid duplicating the hood lining the IBAC had already assigned Marietta College (white with a navy blue chevron), the Bureau assigned Lawrence College a hood lining that was white with two Yale blue chevrons, according to Intercollegiate Bureau lists from 1927, 1948, and 1972. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970) used an identical description. However, an IBAC list from 1969 interchanged the colors in the hood lining, describing it as Yale blue with two white chevrons. This was because Lawrence had by that point adopted a new hood lining system whereby different hood lining patterns indicated different master’s and doctor’s degrees, a system that ran counter to the Intercollegiate Code.

According to Marguerite Schumann in “Your Guide to Academic Plumage”, an article in the 14 June 1964 edition of the Post-Crescent newspaper in Appleton, Wisconsin, the Master of Science hoods at Lawrence were lined Yale blue with two white chevrons, which created one more duplication of the hood lining the Bureau had already assigned to Villanova University and the University of Connecticut. Honorary doctorates at Lawrence used the same hood lining as the Master of Science degree. But the Master of Arts degree at the college used a Yale blue hood lining with a single white chevron, which was identical to the hood lining used by Pennsylvania State University. Only the Doctor of Philosophy degree at Lawrence used the correct white hood lining with two Yale blue chevrons assigned by the Intercollegiate Bureau.

This multiplication of hood lining patterns was unnecessary because the shapes of the master’s and doctor’s hoods are different, and the velvet edging of the hood communicates the degree title. Therefore, this website has retained the original Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume assignment for the lining of all of Lawrence University’s hoods: white with two Yale blue chevrons.