University of Montana system
Each institution in the system uses different athletic colors but the same academic hood lining pattern from the original University of Montana:
University of Montana
Montana
1893
Formerly “State University of Montana” and “Montana State University”
Not long after the university was founded in 1893, students at the University of Montana chose gold, silver, and copper school colors because these are valuable minerals that are found in the state. Today the official colors of the university are maroon and silver, but it is not known when this change occurred nor why.
By the late 1960s the Intercollegiate Bureau records were in disarray. A 1969 IBAC citation described Montana’s hood lining as “copper, double bar (silver, gold)”: a silver bar and a gold bar with the copper lining color in between, which is similar but not identical to Sheard’s bi-bar. A 1972 IBAC list included the university twice: once under the university’s old name (Montana State University) with a hood lining description carried over from the 1927 list; and again under the university’s new name (University of Montana) with a hood lined copper with two silver bars. Gold is missing.
Here the IBAC’s original pre-1927 hood lining assignment has been retained.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): gold/silver/copper (1897-1901); copper/gold/silver (1902-1915); silver/copper/gold (1916-1933); copper/silver/gold (1934-1935)
Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) hood lining lists in 1927 and 1948 described the hood lining of Montana State University (University of Montana) as “gold above, copper below” with a silver gray chevron in between.
This elegant design was evidently miscommunicated to Kevin Sheard when he was compiling information for his 1962 book entitled Academic Heraldry in America, because Sheard described Montana’s hood as copper with a bi-bar (a single bar divided into two colors) of silver and gold.
