Contact Information
If you have questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions about the content of this website, please email the Intercollegiate Registry of Academic Costume at:
intercollegiate.registry@gmail.com
Here are answers to some frequently asked questions.
My college or university isn’t listed in the Registry. Why not?
The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume only assigned an official hood lining pattern to colleges and universities that requested one, so perhaps your school never received an official pattern. The Bureau had largely abdicated this responsibility by the 1960s. Also, in the 1930s the Bureau seems to have started assigning new and unique hood lining patterns only to institutions that conferred “terminal” degrees: doctoral degrees and the Master of Fine Arts. The Intercollegiate Registry of Academic Costume has continued to uphold this restriction. So if your college or university confers doctoral degrees or the MFA and you would like to request an official hood lining pattern from the Registry, please ask an official representative from your college or university to contact the Intercollegiate Registry at the email address at the top of this page. Typically the school’s registrar’s office or the alumni office is responsible for academic regalia decisions, so contact them first.
The Registry cites my college or university as having a different hood lining pattern than the one on the hood I purchased from my college. Why?
There are three reasons your hood lining might not match the hood lining in the Intercollegiate Registry of Academic Costume. The Registry has compiled its information from primary sources that are decades old. Over time, many colleges and universities have forgotten the original hood lining pattern they were assigned and have started using a different pattern. In fact, one of the purposes of this website is to provide historical information about academic costume to colleges and universities so that they can begin using the official hood lining pattern that is unique to their school. This historical information is also provided for the benefit of academic costume manufacturers. Many of these companies have not maintained their academic hood lining records very well (or never had them), and therefore an unfortunate tendency has been to provide a “generic” hood lining to customers – that is, a hood lining with a single chevron – even though many of these schools were at one time assigned a hood lining that employed a special heraldic pattern unique to that college or university. Lastly, your hood lining pattern may differ from the one described on this website because sometimes the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume made a mistake and assigned the same or similar hood lining pattern to two or more schools. The Intercollegiate Registry of Academic Costume has tried to correct these mistakes by modifying some of these duplicated or confusingly similar hood lining assignments so that each school can use a unambiguously unique hood lining pattern. The entry for your college or university will note all changes that have been made to your school’s hood lining pattern over the years.
The college colors for my school that are listed in the Registry are wrong. Why?
The Intercollegiate Registry of Academic Costume has tried to compile historical information about the colors of the colleges and universities cited here. But the cruel fact of the matter is that most schools have changed their colors or the shades of those colors over the last century or more, so the colors your school uses today may not resemble the historic colors your school used 10, 50, or 100 years ago. The Registry had to make a decision about this; we decided to restore a college or university’s original hood lining colors (and its heraldic pattern) whenever possible, regardless of the colors the institution currently uses. Our philosophy on this matter is that academic costume is by definition archaic, so an institution’s hood lining colors can be archaic, too – a beloved anomaly reflecting the sartorial history of one’s alma mater. That said, the Intercollegiate Registry is happy to redesign a college or university’s hood lining pattern with the institution’s current colors. Please have an official representative of your school contact us at the email address above.
I want to purchase a hood that is lined with the special heraldic pattern for my college cited in the Registry, but the company I’ve contacted says they will only make a hood with a single chevron. What should I do?
Find another company. There are many academic costume manufacturers or private tailors that will create a hood for you that is accurate. Sometimes the smaller companies have better customer service than the larger companies. Just remember – you’re paying them to create the garment you want. If they won’t do that, take your business somewhere else.
If I’m ordering a hood, what details should I confirm with the manufacturer?
Color and pattern are really important. First of all, make sure that the hood pattern they are going to use is historically correct, especially the length and shape of the hood. Give them the Registry’s website link to the page for your college or university so that they can see what your school’s hood lining should look like. Make sure the satin fabrics they use for your school’s colors in the hood lining are the correct hues. Make sure the heraldic pattern and the dimensions of the pattern are correct. One of the most vexing problems today is that manufacturers want to make the chevron(s) too wide. For example, a single chevron should be no more than three or four inches in width. And finally, make sure the Faculty color of the velvet edging correctly indicates the wording of your degree as it appears on your diploma.
I work at a university archive, and we have several academic garments in our collection that your readers might want to see. Would you like to include photos of these caps, gowns, and hoods on your website?
To be blunt: YES! This is a non-profit website devoted to the history of American academic costume. If you have photographs, historical documents, or original research you’ve done on this subject, please share them with us. We are particularly interested in primary source material, not anecdotal information (although this is sometimes useful). Photographs of early (pre-1950) hoods are especially needed. We’re also lacking information about the history of the collegiate colors of many institutions.