University of Dayton
Ohio
1850
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): red/blue (1923-1935)
Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927, 1948, and 1972 described the University of Dayton as having a hood lined scarlet with a light blue chevron. “Scarlet” is how the Bureau often described a bright red hue. It is not known whether this was a hood lining pattern that had been officially assigned by the IBAC or merely a record of the university’s school colors applied to a hypothetical hood lining arrangement, but either way it was a unique hood lining not used by any other college or university at the time. A list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described Dayton’s hood lining as red with a light blue chevron.
Blue and red were selected as school colors when the University of Dayton was founded in 1850 to symbolize “devotion to Mary and loyalty to humanity”. The Roman Catholic school used light blue and bright red shades of these colors.
