University of Akron
Ohio
1870
Formerly “Buchtel College” and “Municipal University of Akron”
The colors of Buchtel College had been dark blue and old gold since the 1870s at the latest, and when Buchtel became the Municipal University of Akron in 1913 the same colors continued to be used. Officially, though, the shades of Akron’s colors were defined as navy blue and old gold.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): navy blue/old gold (1917-1935)
After approving the 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume, the Intercollegiate Commission of Academic Costume forwarded a copy of the Code along with a list of college colors to the Living Church Quarterly, where they were published in the 1 December 1895 issue. In this list Buchtel College was cited as having colors of dark blue and old gold, strongly implying that the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) had assigned the college a hood lined dark blue with an old gold chevron.
But as this design too closely resembled the hood lining the IBAC had also assigned to Allegheny College (navy blue with an old gold chevron), not long thereafter the Bureau must have interchanged Buchtel’s hood lining colors, perhaps when Buchtel became the Municipal University of Akron in 1913. Academic hood lists published by the IBAC in 1927 and 1948 described the Municipal University of Akron as having a hood lined old gold with a dark blue chevron.
Unfortunately this was essentially a duplication of the hood lining the IBAC had already assigned to US Naval Academy (old gold with a navy blue chevron), so perhaps for this reason the IBAC interchanged the colors of Akron’s hood once again in the late 1940s or 1950s. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the university’s hood lining as navy blue with an old gold chevron. This description was repeated in a 1969 IBAC list, but by 1972 the Bureau was describing Akron’s hood as dark blue with an old gold chevron. However the revised hood was cited, it was still a duplication of the hood lining the IBAC had assigned Allegheny College before 1912.
To avoid the duplications with both of the hood lining patterns the Intercollegiate Bureau had assigned the University of Akron, here Akron has been reassigned a unique and distinctive hood lining that echoes a heraldic pattern in the university’s seal: a division of the colors into four squares, with the upper left and lower right squares being navy blue and the upper right and lower left squares being old gold.