The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) probably assigned a hood lining to Alvernia University not long after it was founded in 1958, but the first official description of the university’s hood was in an IBAC list from 1972 where it was stated to be “gold over maroon”.

Confusingly, the IBAC described a number of hoods as “[color] above [color]” or “[color] over [color]” which referred either to a hood lining divided per chevron, per reversed chevron, or per bar. Today it is not usually known which of these three patterns the IBAC intended to describe.

Because Alvernia’s seal is heraldically divided per reversed chevron, here the IBAC description has been interpreted to resemble the heraldry of the school seal.