To avoid assigning duplicate hood linings to colleges and universities that used the same school colors, the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) used different types of heraldic patterns to divide the two or more colors in an academic hood. In IBAC lists from 1927 and 1948, a number of hood lining patterns were described as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]”, which referred either to a hood lining divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar. Unfortunately, today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the Bureau intended to describe.

Along with Creighton University, Mount St. Mary’s University (MD), and the College of New Rochelle (all Roman Catholic schools), the IBAC assigned St. Mary’s College a hood lined “light blue above white” no later than 1927, according to an IBAC list from that period. A 1948 IBAC description was identical. However, a list compiled by Kevin Sheard in Academic Heraldry in America (1962) described the hood lining of St. Mary’s College as light blue with a white chevron, and an IBAC list from 1969 similarly stated that the lining was blue with a white chevron. Why the IBAC redesigned the college’s hood is unknown, particularly since the new design was identical to the hood lining the Bureau assigned to Columbia University (light blue with a white chevron) in 1895 or 1896. To avoid this problem, the original IBAC hood lining for St. Mary’s College has been restored, with the division between the light blue and white defined as being per reversed chevron, to echo a similar heraldic pattern in the college’s seal.