William Woods University
Missouri
1870
LOWER HALF OF
THE CHEVRON IS
WHITE VELVET
Detailed historical information about the forest green and white school colors of William Woods University is not available, but the current colors of the university are forest green and burgundy. It is not known when white was changed to burgundy.
In the United States, the typical academic hood was lined with silk or satin in the colors of the college or university that conferred the degree the hood represented.
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) did not assign a hood lining pattern to William Woods College until the late 1940s or 1950s. In Academic Heraldry in America (1962), Kevin Sheard described the college’s hood lining as emerald green with a reversed bi-chevron of white satin above white velvet — a very unusual design. A 1972 IBAC list used the same description.
A bi-chevron consisted of two chevrons, each two to 2½ inches in width, placed contiguously so that the lining color did not show between them. Together the two thin chevrons created a single standard width chevron (four to five inches wide) made of two colors. In the case of William Woods College, however, the two chevrons were the same color but of two different fabrics.