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 president 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 1902 one of the other heraldic divisions the IBAC used was a “zone” of color, which is how the IBAC described a horizontal bar. Like the chevron, the bar was approximately three to four inches in width and extended from one side of the hood lining to the other.

To avoid duplicating the hood lining already assigned to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (silver with a gold chevron), the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume assigned Bank Street College of Education a hood lining that was silver with a gold bar. The only description of this hood is in a 1972 IBAC list, which suggests an assignment in the late 1960s or early 1970s.