University of Nebraska system
Each institution in the system uses different athletic colors but the same academic hood lining pattern from the original University of Nebraska:
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Nebraska
1869
Students at the University of Nebraska selected scarlet and cream as its school colors in the late 19th century. Additional historical research on this topic is needed.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): scarlet/cream (1895-1935)
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) was affiliated with the academic costume firm Cotrell & Leonard, and one of the partners in this firm, Gardner Cotrell Leonard, was also the Director of the IBAC. So one way to estimate the date a school was assigned a hood lining pattern by the Bureau is to note when that school was first advertised as being a client of Cotrell & Leonard.
The University of Nebraska first appeared in a Cotrell & Leonard advertisement in the University of Chicago Cap and Gown yearbook Vol. 3 (1898), indicating an Intercollegiate Bureau registration date for Nebraska’s hood in 1897 or 1898. The advertisement did not describe the actual color pattern used in the college’s hood; this was first cited in a 1918 IBAC list, which stated that the university’s hood lining was “scarlet above cream-white, parti-per-chevron”.
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume had begun using this “parti per chevron” division for hoods before 1902 at the latest, according to a 27 July 1902 article about the Bureau in an Albany, NY newspaper called the Argus.
Beginning with the 1918 IBAC list and continuing in every IBAC list thereafter, Nebraska’s hood description was unchanged, except that the lower color was described as “cream” (not “cream white”) in Intercollegiate Bureau lists from the 1960s.
The Bureau used a per chevron division of Nebraska’s colors to avoid duplicating the hood lining already assigned to the Chicago Theological Seminary (scarlet with cream white chevron).