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 Bureau director Gardner Cotrell Leonard also used other heraldic devices to avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors. By 1918 one of the other heraldic divisions the IBAC used was the “cross”, whereby a cross of one color was superimposed on the lining color. This pattern was rarely used because it was difficult to tailor a hood lining that would retain the correct proportions of the cross pattern when the hood was folded and worn.

Simpson Bible College did not appear in early Intercollegiate Bureau lists from 1927 or 1948, so the IBAC might not have assigned the college a hood lining until the 1960s. In Academic Dress and Insignia of the World (1970), Kevin Sheard described Simpson’s hood lining as “cherry red” with a white cross. An identical description was cited in a 1972 list from the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume.