The chevron was by far the most common heraldic division the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) employed to divide the two or three colors in an institution’s hood, but beginning in 1895 the “double chevron” was also used quite frequently. The typical width of a normal chevron was between three and four inches, but the double chevron pattern used two chevrons of about 1½ inches in width placed approximately two inches apart so that the color of the hood lining showed between them.

McKendree College appeared in 1927 and 1948 IBAC lists as having a single-color hood lining that was purple, but this was probably not an officially-authorized assignment because it would have duplicated the hood lining the IBAC had already assigned in 1895 or 1896 to Bureau president Gardner Cotrell Leonard’s alma mater Williams College (royal purple).

At some point in the late 1940s or 1950s, the Intercollegiate Bureau officially assigned McKendree a hood lining that was “purple” with two white chevrons. The two chevrons were used to differentiate McKendree’s hood from that of Amherst College (purple with a white chevron).

Unfortunately, the IBAC had not accurately recorded McKendree’s royal purple color, but a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) correctly described McKendree’s hood lining as “royal purple” with two white chevrons. An IBAC list from 1972 was similar, except that the Bureau again said that the hood was lined purple (not “royal purple”) with two white chevrons.