Pennsylvania College for Women first appeared in an Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume (IBAC) list in 1927, having been assigned a hood lined purple with two white chevrons. The IBAC had assigned Amherst College a hood lined purple with a single white chevron between 1895 and 1902, and had assigned Cornell College a hood lined purple with three chevrons no later than 1904, so the hood for Pennsylvania College for Women must have been assigned during the same period, between Amherst and Cornell College.

In 1955 Pennsylvania College for Women was renamed Chatham College and today the university has school colors of purple and gray with green accents. Purple, green, and white are suffragette colors, so here the traditional colors of Pennsylvania College for Women (purple and white) and the new green color of Chatham University have been combined into one hood lining. This design retains the purple lining and two thin white chevrons originally assigned by the IBAC, with the addition of a green chevron between the two thin white chevrons to create what the Bureau called a “tri-chevron”. The white edging to the green chevron allows the green and purple to be combined following the heraldic rule of tincture. Each of the thin chevrons is approximately 1½ inches in width.