Academic hood lists published by the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) in 1927 and 1948 described St. Thomas College as having a hood lined purple with a white chevron. St. Thomas College was renamed the “University of Scranton” in 1938 and appeared under both names in a 1972 IBAC list, and in each case was cited as having a hood lining pattern of purple with a white chevron.

The actual color of the hood lining of St. Thomas College and the University of Scranton was royal purple, not purple, but by the 1920s the Intercollegiate Bureau had stopped distinguishing between “royal purple” and “purple” in its descriptions. Kevin Sheard, in Academic Heraldry in America (1962), more accurately described the hood lining for the university as royal purple with a white chevron. Probably because of the imprecision of the Intercollegiate Bureau’s records, the IBAC mistakenly assigned St. Thomas the same hood lining they had assigned Mount Union College (royal purple with a white chevron), so here the hood lining for the University of Scranton has been redesigned with a white bar, which echoes the heraldry of the university’s seal.