Virginia University of Lynchburg
Virginia
1886
Formerly “Virginia Theological Seminary and College”
Information about the history of the blue and white school colors of Virginia Theological Seminary and College is not available at this time.
Citations in the World Almanac (listed by cover date; color information is from the previous year): blue/white (1923-1935)
The chapter on American academic hoods in the 1923 edition of The Degrees and Hoods of the World’s Colleges and Universities by Frank Haycraft included a description of the 1895 Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume and a long list of schools, each with a description of its hood lining. The chapter was written in a way that implied that this list was from the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC). Actually, most of Haycraft’s American hood information was out of date (from c.1912) or inaccurate, derived from a chart of college colors in the 1909 and 1910 editions of the World Almanac, with the first color in this chart interpreted by Haycraft to indicate the lining color of the school’s hood and the second color in the chart interpreted to indicate the chevron color of the school’s hood.
That said, some of the schools in Haycraft’s book did not appear in the 1909 and 1910 editions of the World Almanac or were listed differently in those sources. So apparently Haycraft was given a partial list of college and university hoods from the IBAC and he supplemented that list with additional schools from the 1909 or 1910 World Almanac. Virginia Theological Seminary and College (today Virginia University of Lynchburg) is an example of an institution in Haycraft’s list that did not appear in the 1909 and 1910 editions of the World Almanac, which suggests that the college’s hood lining description cited by Haycraft might have been from information he received from the Intercollegiate Bureau around 1912.
Haycraft described the hood lining of Virginia Seminary and College as white with a blue chevron. The first definitive IBAC description of the college’s hood was from 1927; here it was identically described as white with a blue chevron. “Blue” was typically one of the ways the Bureau described a medium blue or “true blue” shade. In a 1972 IBAC list the colors were transposed (blue with a white chevron) but this must have been a transcription error as it duplicated the hood lining that had already been assigned to Millikin University by 1918 at the latest.
Please note that in vintage materials published before 1996 when the college changed its name to “Virginia University of Lynchburg”, Virginia Theological Seminary and College should not be confused with Virginia Theological Seminary.